The weather Gods clearly love Kodaline. Despite earlier predictions of thundery downpours, the Swords superstars enjoyed one of the balmiest nights of the summer for their biggest hometown headliner to date.
The Marlay Park setting – in the foothills of the Dublin mountains, surrounded by lush greenery – was majestic and the atmosphere among the sell-out crowd suitably festive. Following earlier sets from Walking On Cars and Jess Glynne (who gave a particularly impressive, upbeat performance), the Northsiders arrived onstage to huge cheers, the lads visibly beaming to the huge crowd through three giant video screens. Kicking straight into ‘Ready’ followed by the nostalgic ‘Way Back When’, crowd participation broke-out immediately – and they were off.
‘High Hopes’ – their breakthrough hit – arrived surprisingly early in the set but no-one was complaining. It is a song that fans adore. “We played this song to four people in a bar in Swords once,” frontman Stephen Garrigan quipped. “No one listened. Now there’s 20,000 of you out there.” His falsetto vocals on the chorus were marvellous and the song remains a touchstone.
Some of the more stylized tunes from their Jacknife Lee-produced sophomore album, Coming Up For Air, channeled Coldplay and U2 influences, most notably on tracks like ‘Lost’, with its extended intro and angular guitar textures, and the polyrhythmic ‘Autopilot’ – which morphed into more familiar anthemic territory.
An outbreak of “Ole Ole Ole” in the crowd came as no surprise and there was the obligatory “get out your phones” request, this time for ‘The One’ – a powerful acoustic ballad that was written for a friend’s wedding.
The light was fading and the atmosphere intensified as they swept into more sing-along crowd-pleasing material, including ‘Love Like This’ and ‘All Comes Down’, while ‘Honest’ found Garrigan back at the keyboards on what was arguably the song that was best-received of the entire night.
A video-clip of that Robbie Brady header preceded the danceable, ‘Play The Game’ – the nearest thing in the band’s armory to an Acthung Baby-era U2 tune, complete with dazzling techno lights and flames rising from the stage.
Despite their enormous popularity and clearly devoted audiences the band remain understated. Stage banter is something they might work on: playing big stages, which these guys will surely be doing for the foreseeable future, as Bono established a long time ago, requires a different level of command.
“You guys up for some singing?” Steve shouted and the answer was a resounding ‘yes’. The potential is there to build on that rapport. There was a revealing anecdote, when Steve spoke about his first ever gig at Marlay Park, when he saw The White Stripes. That, it must be said, is good company for Kodaline to be keeping.
The encore found him donning an acoustic guitar and strumming the opening chords to ‘All I Want’ to delirious scenes. A storm of coloured confetti shot out from the stage and everyone sang along. It was a great way to end a fine night’s music…
• Colm O'Hare

*All our great photos from the night can be seen by clicking here.