Sharon Van Etten at Cork Opera House review: Celebratory gig with an emotional punch
Sharon Van Etten and band at Cork Opera House. Picture: Shane Horan
★★★★☆
Sharon Van Etten closed her near month-long European tour with a hugely enjoyable gig at Cork Opera House for the city’s Midsummer Festival. The tour came on the back of sixth album, We’ve Been Going About This All Wrong, where alt-rock tendencies contrast with thoughtful Americana on a record that’s been widely-praised all round.
Emerging first on stage is Galway singer-songwriter Maija Sofia, with accompaniment from live harpist Méabh McKenna, weaving tales of romance and trauma, connection and loneliness.
By the time the silhouette of Van Etten is visible under the Opera House lights, a packed house brings the temperature back up to meet a glowering rendition of ‘Headspace’. Her stage presence, only exaggerated by a few spotlights and some LED uplighting, is drawn from an authenticity that visibly drives her to magnetic charisma as she stalks the stage, getting visibly emotional at times.
“It’s been too long, I apologise,” says the New Jersey-born singer, “apparently the world was trying to end."
A live airing of ‘Mistakes’ gets people up and dancing, however, and they don’t sit down again, falling into silence as ‘Darkish’ opens the encore, moving some to tears as a single acoustic guitar and wounded voice is accompanied by field-recorded birdsong and the low hum of freshly-driven house speakers.
It makes for a charged moment: “When we were all in our bubbles, amid the intensity of the darkness and the unknowable, people stopped driving around LA and the skies turned blue… we have to keep looking for that silver lining, that’s what it’s all about.”
But on the final night of tour, band and audience alike haven’t long to dwell on the last few years before a celebratory mood strikes. ‘Darkness Fades’ even sees Van Etten’s five-year-old son do a lap of the stage in his mother’s arms. A triumphant ‘Seventeen’ sends the crowd home happy after some singalong action, and namedrops for her ancestral home of Achill Island.
In post-gig catharsis, it’s clear: Sharon Van Etten is an artist that brings it straight from the gut - and from the heart.
