A Georgian church in Dublin’s stuffiest business district isn’t everybody’s idea of a top-notch live music venue (nobody’s serving alcohol and there’s only one bathroom, for Pete’s sake), but something about the soulful, wintry folk of James Vincent McMorrow just begs to be performed on an altar. Tonight, an effortlessly scruffy Mr. McMorrow jokes about how often he gets asked to gig in churches. The Malahide lad has played four places of worship in under a year, which, aside from those three northern priests who made an album (what were they called again?), must be a record.
The visual desert plate that is Pepper Canister Church looks nothing short of otherworldly, as a mass of coloured lights flood the belly of the steeple. McMorrow’s own set up is simple – three backing singers, a guitar and his voice.
And what a fucking voice. A pleading, somersaulting, Buckley-esque falsetto – you don’t so much drink it in, as you do fall victim to it. McMorrow opens his honker and suddenly 20 minutes have gone by and someone’s pinched your jacket, or at least they would have done if they weren’t been taken under the same trance.
While the Choice-nominated musician is probably best identified by his sorrowful, ceiling-scraping croon (and that’s one high ceiling right there), on a couple of numbers, including the breathless ‘We Don’t Eat’, he charges through the notes with surprising force, and these are every bit as lovely as the hushed, navelgazing moments.
We’re treated to two covers tonight, a version of ‘Wolves’ by Phosphorescent (the highly underrated brainchild of Alabama singer songwriter Matthew Houck) and Antony Hegarty’s haunting signature song ‘Hope There’s Someone’. Both are indistinguishable from McMorrow’s own material – a very good thing, indeed.
The McMorrow coma reaches especially dangerous levels when, towards the end of the set, James Vincent invites his backing vocalists out onto the church floor for a near-spiritual rendition of choral showpiece ‘If I Had A Boat’. Whether it’s the temple, the tune or the three-part harmonies, the effect is communally hypnotic. If there’s a single person in the pews pining for a hard drink and a dark bar, I sure as hell can’t pick him out.