Dermot Kennedy in Dublin: Rathcoole native gets everyone’s spirits positively soaring

Dermot Kennedy at Marlay Park: Did ye get healed?

Marlay Park, Dublin

★★★★☆

“I’ve been around the world so many times, but nothing feels like home,” Dermot Kennedy informs the 40,000-strong crowd at Marlay Park in Dublin as he opens the first of five big homecoming gigs following a tour of the US.

He delivers this message via a handwritten note on the venue’s big screen, making it clear his grá for his homeland runs deep and wide. Another one exhorts the fans to “take your love and loss, and sing for all the beauty in your life”. As show intros go, it certainly beats “hello Cleveland!”

When Kennedy steps purposefully on stage in camouflage trousers, black T-shirt and military-style number one haircut, flanked by his band, dressed all in black, he looks every bit the battle-scarred soldier coming back from his latest tour of duty having dispatched another army of personal demons.

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And he gets a hero’s welcome from a crowd determined to have a good time on this balmy Friday night and sing along to every tune. The recent controversy over a word he used on Canadian radio deemed offensive to Travellers has been forgiven and almost forgotten.

The much-forecast rain fails to materialise, appearing only in Kennedy’s lyrics, and invariably banished by the time the chorus comes along - which in all Kennedy’s songs usually arrives pretty quickly. The Rathcoole native writes strident urban pop songs built to soothe the troubled mind – not least his own – and, over a nearly two-hour set, he sets about getting everyone’s spirits not just lifted, but positively soaring.

Earlier, singer-songwriter Nell Mescal deftly stepped out from the shadow of her Oscar-nominated brother Paul with indie-driven songs including In My Head and Homesick, while American singer-songwriter David Kushner displayed his rich vocals on Mr Forgettable, Georgia Rain, Miserable Man and his current viral hit Daylight.

Kennedy opens with Blossom, the closing track from his second album, Sonder, building the vibe up nice and slowly before letting rip with Power Over Me, driven by the powerhouse drumming of Kennedy’s fellow Dubliner Micheál Quinn.

With Sonder, Kennedy has nicely built on the success of his debut, Without Fear, and some of the biggest songs of the night come from that sophomore set, including One Life and Dreamer, with its simple Imagine-style piano riff and glass-half-full refrain of “isn’t that worth something?”

Still, earlier songs such as An Evening I Will Not Forget, Moments Passed and Lost provide a solid bedrock for Kennedy to mount his sonic war on self-doubt and despair. And his hit single Outnumbered – a previous UK Top 10 hit – is still numbered among his most enduring hits.

Kennedy seldom veers from the winning blueprint of heartfelt balladry with loud, cathartic choruses, but when it’s all wrapped up in a sincere desire to make the listener feel less lonely and outnumbered, you just have to go with the lyrical flow.

Halfway through the show, he takes his place on a raised dais in the middle of the crowd to sit at the piano and play Rome and Innocence & Sadness, and reveals the big fear that drives him to be the best he can be: the inexorable passing of time. But rather than rage against the inevitable dying of the light, Kennedy simply roars – and gets the crowd to roar along with him like a self-help sergeant-major.

After Rain sees the crowd sing “you won’t go lonely here” over a Stairway to Heaven-ly coda, while Better Days, Kiss Me and new single Don’t Forget Me keep the momentum up right to the final song, Something to Someone. But Kennedy’s not going to leave the stage until he’s satisfied that everyone is singing at the top of their voice, and so follows a nice, extended finale as we gamely try – and fail – to win this final battle of the decibels.

Dermot Kennedy plays Marlay Park again tonight. He is due to play Thomond Park, Limerick, on Friday, July 7th, Saturday, July 8th, and Sunday, July 9th