Caught Live: Midlake + John Grant + Jason Lytle @ Vicar Street, Dublin

Sunday night in Dublin, and the tip of Hurricane Tomas has been winding its way across the country all day – so it’s perhaps apt to recall that a section of tonight’s Vicar Street venue was once called The Shelter. This latest installment in Foggy Notions’ Harmonic Series boasts a mouth-watering – and seriously value-for-money – triple-bill. First up is former Grandaddy frontman Jason Lytle, who gives a slightly subdued acoustic run-through of some of his old band’s cherished material (‘Now It’s On’ and ‘Everything Beautiful Is Far Away’), as well as a handful of works-in-progress that he tells us will appear on a new solo album “whenever I get around to it”. It’s good to see him back again, even if his all-too-brief set brings new meaning to the term ‘low-key’. The winsome melancholy of closing track 'Young Saints' recalls On The Beach-era Neil Young, and leaves us wanting more.
 
After a short changeover, RW favourite John Grant then delights a thickening crowd with his warts‘n’all baritone and tragi-comic piano ballads; the Denver native is in typically wry form, and his dedication of ‘Where Dreams Go To Die’ to the arduous ferry crossing endured by tonight’s acts earlier in the day raises a chuckle or three from the audience. So too does a pounding version of ‘Sigourney Weaver’, which tonight sounds even more cathartic-but-hilarious (“Why don’t you bore the f**k out of somebody else?...”) than on record. To round off what turns out to be a show-stealing set, Grant treats fans of his ill-fated former band The Czars to an outstanding retread of ‘Drug’, from 2001's The Ugly People Vs. The Beautiful People, by which time none of us really want to see him depart the stage. The career rebirth is complete: catch this guy live sooner rather than later.
 
It’s fair to say, then, that the bar has been raised considerably by the time headliners Midlake stride onstage. The Texan band enjoy a loyal following on these shores, and seem genuinely thrilled to be back playing to an appreciative Irish crowd; they even cite their Vicar St. performance earlier in the year as one of their definitive highlights of 2010.
 
Mutual appreciation aside, though, Midlake’s live performances have a tendency to be solid, precise exercises, rather than particularly exciting or climactic affairs, and tonight ultimately proves no exception. Mid-tempo elemental torchsongs are punctuated by impressive, but still somewhat restrained, guitar workouts: sprawling, yes, but not exactly electrifying. In fairness, they do play to their strengths, and it’s hard to actually fault any of the songs tonight – the bulk of which are lifted from latest album, The Courage Of Others. But it’s really only when old fan favourites like ‘Young Bride’ and ‘Roscoe’ eventually kick in that tonight’s set starts to come alive. The Trials Of Van Occupanther – their 2006 sophomore LP – remains a landmark mid-noughties record, and the band’s overly-studied professionalism can do little to stifle these modern classics.
 
As the evening draws to a close, both support acts are reintroduced: Grant delivers a pleasingly beefed-up rendition of The Czars’ ‘Paint The Moon’ (how long until they reform, I wonder?...), before a beaming Jason Lytle leads all assembled through a barnstorming singalong of the Grandaddy mini-anthem ‘A.M. 180’. A few hundred ageing, bearded slackers nod in unison as Lytle drawls the immortal “Whatever, together” refrain, and there’s a tear in this writer’s eye in memory of one of this generation’s great American anti-hero bands.
 
The hirsute headliners are left alone to perform a final encore of ‘Branches’, which unfortunately provokes at least one ill-advised attempt at mass lighter-waving from within the crowd. As we don our winter coats and get ready to trudge back out into the wind and rain, it seems entirely fitting to have ‘Head Home’’s mantra of “Bring me a day full of honest work / And a roof that never leaks / I’ll be satisfied” still ringing in our ears.
 
Ragged Words photographer Mark Earley was also in Vicar Street on Sunday night. Go here for a photogallery of his shots from the gig.