It Is Whatever

It’s difficult to justify the use of drums in Irish music, particularly with a virtuoso such as Sharon Shanon. However, her set in the Forum is so diverse the drums bring a necessary thump for a crowd that just wanted to have a good loud musical romp.

Sharon Shannon, one of Ireland’s leading ladies, has enjoyed recent bigger fame with her Steve Earle sung and cider commercial hit Galway Girl. She shows within the first two songs however that she is more than a one-hit-folk-pop-song-wonder. Full of smiles she is obviously “delighted to be here in the big smoke.” Delighted to be here kicking ass she failed to mention.

The musicians are class including her crew who she introduces to sing a few songs. Her guitarist Jack Maher also sings a touching blues number with James Delaney blasting out an inspired keyboard solo. Delaney is the man of the gig for me – Maybe mostly because he put a bit of thought into what he was going to wear! Some girl from Cork also makes an appearance. What she fails in her version of Don’t Think Twice It’s Alright – learn the fecking melody would you? – she makes up for with her solo performance of Port Of Amsterdam.

When Shane MacGowan comes on to sing The Irish Rover the place erupts as if it’s just been announced that it’s Saint Patrick’s Day and all the beer is free. And Chris de Burgh has just won the Eurovision Song Content. And Dustin The Turkey is now the Ard Ri f Ireland. MacGowan is in pretty good shape even if he does have to check the setlist every time a new song begins.

I make my way to the front to take some photos after which I get a tap on the shoulder from some guy saying, “Excuse me! Security!” I thought he was going to take the camera off me but as it happens he is just interested getting past me. The guy does the same to everyone between me and the front barriers where upon arrival plants himself as King Idiot heckling MacGowan.

I wouldn’t have minded except Rainy Night In Soho begins and Idiot Man is really getting the attention. An aggitated MacGowan then throws the guy the fingers to cheers from the audience. All this then causes Shane to mess up his lyrics a little. The idiot then heckles more and in the end throws his beer at MacGowan. He then in turn goes to gob on him but, seeing that the shot was never going to be 100%, gobs hard on the ground with the idiot at the front of his massive genius mind. We all see this happen and cheer. Yay! The security guards then come over and the idiot scarpers. Woohoo! Love live punk eh?

The rest of the gig then goes great. Sally Maclennane, Fiesta, Fairytale Of New York, Dirty Old Town, Music For A Found Harmonium and Galway Girl.. The songs just kept coming and the madness keeps getting madder. MacGowan ends up doing a bit of a one man trashing of the stage.

The set ends at 11pm – two and a half hours after it begins. Great show. Check out the photos here and my youtube footage above.

BTW I haven’t got a setlist for this one so feel free to add what was played below