Tonight’s Band Of Horses show was originally supposed to take place at the Button Factory, but the clamour for tickets prompted an upgrade to the much larger Tripod. Some of the credit for this must go to local indie station Phantom FM, which has devotedly championed the group over the past few months.
The band open with the song that has become their anthem: ‘Is There A Ghost’. That they choose to dispatch it while many punters are still negotiating bar and cloakroom, would appear not to bode well. Luckily, this crowd is au fait with the rest of their repertoire and the gamble does not prove fatal. Debut Irish outings for audience favourites ‘Great Salt Lake’ and ‘The Funeral’ dovetail an introspective mid-set lull. To pitch the southern sextet as a more reflective, reverb-laden Kings of Leon may seem tenuous, but both acts share a revivalist demeanour, a telepathic tightness, and a stunning lead vocalist capable of consistently impeccable delivery.
Mind you, closing with two drawn-out encores feels a touch gratuitous.
“We’d play all night if we could,” proclaims bandleader Ben Birdwell. The affable singer is in no hurry to leave the stage and the devotees are happy to indulge him, departing more than satisfied. The rest of us will require a bit more convincing.