There’s a definite smell of festival wafting from the all-new @ The Park setting, as Villagers fans relax in the evening sunshine outside Marlay Park’s big top. While last night saw local-boys-done-good The Coronas pack the tent, tonight Conor J. O’Brien will showcase his Choice-nominated debut Becoming A Jackal in a homecoming performance he’ll later tell the crowd, is the “symbolic end of an era”.
In keeping with this epic theme, the singer’s special guests are US dream poppers Beach House, and as delighted fans race inside the tent for their set, it’s clear that tonight’s bill is something of a two-for-the-price-of-one special.
There’s time for a brief last-ditch attempt to get a tan after Beach House finish up, before Conor & Co. emerge and take their place onstage at nine o’clock. It’s a powerful set that follows, with mesmerised fans singing along to ‘Home’, ‘The Pact’, and of course, the album’s gorgeous title-track ‘Becoming A Jackal’.
It ain’t all mellow though, and Conor’s full band is well able to keep this semi-intimate venue’s crowd engaged. ‘Pieces’ comes perfectly on-cue as the sun sets, with an onstage backdrop of dimly-lit lanterns enhancing the show’s typically edgy mystique. Conor takes to the keyboards for the beautifully dark ‘I Saw The Dead’, before dropping in a few newbies – proof if proof were needed that this singer’s ‘difficult second album’ will probably be a walk in the, er, park.
For his encore, it’s a stripped-back acoustic version of ‘That Day’, which – needless to say – goes down a treat. At this stage, a reggae take on ‘Baa Baa Black Sheep’ would probably have been equally well-received, such is the lurve in the tent. Conor finishes up with ‘Ship Of Promises’, takes the cutest of bows and exits the stage, leaving his devoted fans as ever, enraptured.