Samuel T Herring marvels at sight in front of him. “This is gorgeous,” he says, before the music starts. “It’s always good to be in Dublin . . . But I’mma shut the f*ck up and make some music.”
A Future Islands gig is a lesson in how to live life to the full. While the rest of the band keep it low key, frontman Herring is the living embodiment of “dance like nobody’s watching”, except everyone is and they’re taking notes. On record, their music is all well and good but when they take to the stage, it becomes an unruly beast that’s coaxed on by Herring, a man who has relentless energy.
Opening with Ran, their recent single from latest album The Far Field, this is their fourth gig this week. From Limerick to Cork, and from Galway to this evening, their "biggest headline show ever", there's a mutual adoration – borderline infatuation – between Future Islands and Ireland, and it only gets stronger with every thump Herring directs to his chest, loud enough for everyone to hear.
Each song is introduced with a short anecdote that takes us on a brief but bittersweet journey. "This is a song about a long walk home alone . . . one of those nights where you thought you had a place to stay but you got turned away at the door," he says wistfully as Before the Bridge bursts into life, growling the verses from the pit of his stomach.
Their music works its way up from the base of your spine until every limb finds its own unique rhythm but, truly, nothing can compare to the art form that is Herring’s dancing. You could spend years studying in an elite dance school and it wouldn’t be a patch on what he has to offer.
He has a strong repertoire of shapes to pull, and pull them he does. And often. A Dream of You and Me sees him kicking his legs out like a Russian dancer; Inch of Dust has him winding his entire body up like a jacked-up sean nós singer; for Sun in the Morning, he's slinking his body like a desert snake; and during Doves, he drops down, rotates his hips and bites his lip, putting pop tween queens to shame.
The human body is a marvellous thing and for every primal ape run, shimmy and shake, he throws his entire soul into his performance, making him one of the most committed frontmen out there.
There's a reluctance in the crowd to head to the bar or nip to the loo, in case we miss a glimmering moment that can never be experienced again. When Seasons (Waiting On You) starts, the security have to scold guests to walk and not run, like strict primary school teachers, down the steps from the portaloos.
It's 10pm and still bright out and as two lads crowd surf, like two little tug boats, during Spirit – it feels like one of those summer nights that will never end. Except it does, but not before they get "kitted the f*ck out" in Irish football jerseys.
“Thank you for being part of our history . . . being part of our lives,” Herring says.
Dedicating Beach Foam to Séamus Coleman and finishing on a slower note with Little Dreamer ("One more to send you starry-eyed off into the night"), they're pandering hard to the crowd, and do we mind? We're used to being pandered to when international acts claim to be one-quarter Irish or praise the Guinness, but Future Islands play this one particularly well.
