Damien Dempsey
Iveagh Gardens, Dublin
★★★★☆
In Colony, Damien Dempsey sings of Freddie, who came from the Iveagh Flats, one of a cast of characters from the wrong side of the tracks.
But the singer from Donaghmede on Dublin’s northside has made the Iveagh Gardens off St Stephen’s Green a home from home. This is his 12th year performing there and it hasn’t rained once, he says. “The sun gods must approve of this summer singsong.”
On the afternoon before last night’s gig, he tells the crowd, he stood on the Hill of Howth and looked down over his city, his heart beating like a surfer anticipating a big wave.
If he was anxious, he need not have worried. This is a crowd he could surf on. In fact, Dempsey doesn’t attract an audience so much as a volunteer choir of acolytes, amplifying every chorus. “You’re in fine voice tonight,” he says, often applauding them at the end of a song.
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A marvellous rendition of Almighty Love, with his young nephew Cathal Dempsey joining him on guitar, kick-starts the night, followed by I Can Feel Your Presence, one of his best ballads, and the anthem Seize the Day, which allows the band to come into their own. The cellist struggles to be heard over guitars and drums but the uilleann pipes and flute give the concert a home-grown sound.
Dempsey is an honest, impassioned singer, who leaves nothing on the pitch, even on weaker numbers. If the simplicity of his lyrics occasionally borders on the banal – the advice to tell the truth but tell it slant either unheard or unheeded – the sincerity of the delivery redeems it.
He dedicates a song to “our Celtic warrior queen fighting tomorrow night”, Katie Taylor. It’s a warm night and Dempsey, a former fighter himself, is breathing heavily between rounds. “I couldn’t wear skinny jeans tonight so I can’t hit the high notes,” he jokes.
He dedicates Chris & Stevie, about two friends who died by suicide, to his mother, who helped him through hard times. “To all you people, be proud of who you are,” he sings and it resonates. He is a blue-collar mechanic for the soul. “I’ll give you a lift after that,” he says, “but you have to grieve.”
Ironically, perhaps, the upbeat number he chooses is Schoolday’s Over by Ewan MacColl, about a school-leaver going down the coal mines. Far more uplifting and lively is Patience with its reggae vibe. “You know I got no brakes!”
“We are travelling on a blue jewel around a burning star,” he tells the crowd. “How could you not sing?”
Serious is next, a powerful, believable ballad about a boy being groomed by a drug dealer, followed by the anthemic Apple of My Eye, his love letter to New York, on which the uilleann pipes come into their own. Then the crowd explodes during a full-blooded rendition of the Rocky Road to Dublin. Suddenly it’s raining beer as plastic glasses sail through the air. It’s euphoric.
Dempsey prefaces Colony, an anti-imperialist song, by expressing solidarity with the Palestinian people and the Jewish activists supporting them and he calls for support for Frances Black’s Occupied Territories Bill.
Negative Vibes reintroduces a welcome reggae beat – “Lord won’t you give me the strength to be strong and true?” – and as the night draws to a close, the singer pays tribute to our glorious dead – Shane MacGowan, Sinéad O’Connor, Seamus Begley and Christy Dignam – with a tender rendition of the beautiful Rainy Night in Soho. He has the measure of our dreams.
Damien Dempsey plays the Iveagh Gardens again tonight
