BRIAN KENNEDY

BRIAN KENNEDY (Midnight At The Olympia, Dublin)

BRIAN KENNEDY’S got a larynx that starts somewhere around his Adam’s apple and ends – well, way below his oxters. He’s got a pair of vocal chords that bungy jump across octaves as effortlessly as Roxana Baiul skitters on an ice pad. And he’s got a band more heavenly than a rake of monkish chanters any day.

Kennedy’s riding high on a tide that’s part Van Morrison and part sheer chutzpah and he’s a surfer born to the crest of the wave. Although he told us that he’s only treading the boards courtesy of BMG’s mercifully loose purse strings, it hardly seemed to matter who’d paid the rent. The fact was that it wouldn’t have been all that surprising if he’d exited stage left bedecked in an eclectic array of lingerie, so rabid were his devotees in their displays of faith, hope and most definitely, love.

Mindful of the precarious disposition of the faithful, he had the sense to test drive a mere handful of new songs tonight, and then only when they were safely cushioned by the more familiar material from 1990’s The Great War Of Words, and 1991’s eponymous debut from his coalition with Mark E. Nevin, Sweetmouth – and how those oldies floated free.

He lent a welcome salsa sensibility to ‘Home To Heartache’; he flirted with Nashville twangy guitars on ‘Dangerous’; and he swivelled those hips more fluidly than Julio Iglesias in the golden days with Real Madrid. His voice soared up to us plebs in the gods with not a thought for ticket prices, its range ever more elasticated by his tripping through a back catalogue that boasts more than a fair share of classics. ‘Is It Loud Enough’ had the crowd on its knees. ‘Half Way Home’ had them virtually prostrate, an auditorium-full of pope-ish tourists intent on marking the spot with their very own speck of saliva.

The path began to stray with the covers, Van’s ‘Crazy Love’ managed an adequate imitation; ‘Carrickfergus’ was muzak to any ears not drowned in ethanol. And as for ‘Everybody Hurts’, well, it began to look like we were in for a shot of The Star Spangled Banner, so anthemic were the proceedings proceeding.

But the gripes were few, and late. Brian Kennedy is set to reclaim his career after his sojourn with the Gods. And he’s welcome back.

• Siobhán Long