Live review: Father John Misty

Father John Misty

Whelan’s, Dublin

****

Josh Tillman's calibre of roguery has evolved such that his mischief makes an appearance before the man himself does. His six-piece arrangement drearily ignites I Love You, Honeybear to a sold-out Whelan's hustle, but they're missing a Misty. The joke stays funny just long enough for Tillman to traipse onstage and immediately save the first line.

“Ya’ll made it out,” he bemuses afterwards. This is meta-messing, and it peppers Father John Misty’s performance with jest from the outset. As an added bonus, he plays some tunes. His sound instils the room with a folk charm, and the showmanship trucks on accordingly. Opening tracks see Tillman climb the kick drum and slow dance with a mic stand. He occasionally mauls strangers in the crowd with lethargic grappling. They bristle with gratitude.

A conspicuous lack of iDevices being drafted for iFilming is upheld until The Night Josh Tillman Came To Town stirs up. Perfectly timed for a ballad on modern life cynicism, Tillman steals a smartphone from the front row and films his face, while scathing, damning lyrics sing out of it. The song's exasperated vigour is captured here in real time, but the iCrowd are somehow still bristling with oblivious adoration.

A few weeks ago Tillman admitted that The Ideal Husband is painful to get through live, forcing him to confront the worst of himself. But you would never guess it. It soars, and bleeds near-perfectly into Hollywood Forever Cemetery Sings, until a colossal cock-up with the lead guitars forces him to stop after several bars.

He grimaces, re-tunes and glares at the guitar techs, before delving back in to downtempo territory. The set wanes slightly, but some chat about Buckfast restores the spirit a little, and he accidentally gets shots for the band sent to stage: “It’s a tonic? It didn’t do sh*t for me.”

Tillman rearranges the order of his "obligatory encore" to include Hollywood, but a furious glare towards offstage at the start reveals that the perfectionist in him is still unhappy with the sound. This is the only point throughout the night that performance comes anything other than naturally to Tillman, so forgiveness comes easy for an otherwise killer set.