Eclectic Dreams

Situated just a stone's throw down the Cowley Road from Oxford's O2 Academy, the magnificently monikered Hobgoblin Pub has a big sign out front which boldly proclaims, "You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy." Once you step through its doors though, you realise it's a clear cut case of false advertising before you've even hailed your ales. Bright, spacious, wood panelled and scumbag-free, the Hobgoblin's obviously more of a trendy student haunt than any kind of den of iniquity.

"Fuck me!" laughs Richie 'Jape' Egan, looking distinctly disappointed. "They should go to some of the pubs in Crumlin!"
It's shortly after 6pm on Sunday May 10, and the impressively moustachioed musician (Nick Cave, eat your heart out!) and your Hot Press correspondents have been driven out of the Academy by the interview-unfriendly volume of Lisa Hannigan's soundcheck. In three hours time, Egan will be playing his eleventh and penultimate solo support slot to Hannigan on what he assures me has been an absolutely brilliant UK tour.
"Tonight's gonna be a bit different, but the venues so far have been fuckin' amazing, beautiful concert hall-type things," he enthuses, "and, on top of that, watching the gig and hearing Lisa sing every night is awesome. But tonight's the second last show. Lisa's doing Jools Holland on Tuesday and then there's a big gig in the Shepherds Bush Empire. And that'll be it then."
Having spent the past fortnight driving around merry England cocooned in a minibus with eight others, bonding over episodes of Phoenix Nights, Herman Hesse novels and various in-jokes, Egan seems genuinely despondent at this prospect. "It's been really good. It's a very different kind of experience for me to me to be doing this kind of tour – a very different kind of audience. The last time I toured the UK was with the Friendly Fires, who are a dance-punk band, so it was a totally different vibe."
One would certainly imagine so...
"We used to go ballistic!" he continues, laughing. "But it's just beers now, taking it easy, just enjoying it. Looking back now on when I was young, we'd tend to go mental, and I dunno if we ever really fully enjoyed the moment. On this tour for me it has been very strange in the sense that I actually know as it's happening that I'm enjoying it, and I'm appreciative of the moments, rather than looking back on it and going 'that was great'."
This being very much a shoestring affair, Egan is touring without his usual Jape bandmates, taking to the stage each night with just a guitar and a sampler. Given that Hannigan and her band have recently finished a lengthy 42-date tour of the US, was it difficult fitting into that tight-knit group as an outsider?
"Nah, it's great for me because I've got no politics with anybody involved in the band, so I just come in and do my thing," he shrugs. "I only ever knew Lisa to say hello to before this. And the lads, they're a very close family, like, you can really tell they've done a lot together. And to come in on that and get on well with them all. But you have to know there's certain things you don't do on tour – you don't make demands of anybody, you keep your own space, and you just let people be their own way. And I've learned that over time touring, and if you get that right then you can actually have a good time."
Although he much prefers playing with his band, Egan says the current solo arrangement suits the new material he's been showcasing.
"When Lisa asked me to do this tour it came at a very good time, because a lot of the newer songs that I've been working on are a lot quieter. It's pretty nerve-wracking because I'm used to using a band and beats and all that kind of stuff, but this is much more stripped-back. I wasn't sure how it would go down, but the UK audiences have been really appreciative, really respectful and really enthusiastic."
Would they know your material?
"I wouldn't say so, to be honest with you. Maybe one or two gigs have had a few Irish people there that'd know me, but most of the audiences wouldn't have a clue who I am."
Just in case any readers are in the same clueless boat, here's a quick thumbnail summary. Born in Dublin 32 summers ago, Richard Egan has been making experimental indie music ever since he got his mitts on his first four-track in his early teens. Although he's been in far too many obscure bands to mention (Black Belt Jones anyone?), he first came to public prominence as the bassist with instrumental mavericks The Redneck Manifesto, and also with David Kitt's touring band The Villagers. The Rednecks are still a going concern and will be recording a new album this summer, but Egan's main gig for the last six years has been as the creative engine behind acclaimed electro-rock practitioners Jape.
Last March, Jape's third album Ritual won the Choice Music Prize for Irish Album of the Year 2008 (for which Hannigan's debut Sea Sew was also shortlisted). While he's obviously chuffed to have won the €10,000, he certainly hasn't let it go to his head.
"It's a strange one," he muses. "It was good to win it, and the money was definitely great to get, but in terms of it making you a better artist or whatever, no it doesn't. So you kind of take everything with a pinch of salt and just try and enjoy it while you can."
Prestigious and all as it may be back home, he freely admits that winning the Choice hasn't helped Ritual's UK sales.
"It didn't do great in England to be honest with you. Fairly shit. But, it's doing alright in other places. But it's not really about how it does for me. You know, it's about how I'm doing. If you wonder how you're doing commercially, then that's a bad road to go down. Because you've got no control over that. The only thing you've got control over is your own development as an artist, and that's something that no one can take away from you. As long as that part is under control, I'm fairly happy.
"My ambition, completely has to be, is forced upon me, is to grow as an artist," he continues. "That's all my ambition. And everything else is just superfluous to that. It's scary, you know. The stuff on Ritual is not that commercial. The stuff I'm doing now is way less commercial than that, but it's just something I have to do. And I can't deny it."
Winning the Choice hasn't been the only high point of Jape's career to date. 'Floating', the spacey opening track from sophomore album The Monkeys In The Zoo Have More Fun Than Me, attracted the attention of The Raconteurs' frontman Brendan Benson during a trip to Dublin, and the song is now regularly covered in their live shows.
"Again, it was the same thing, like. It was an interesting diversion, it was kind of an interesting thing to happen. It was good to see them play that. It definitely pricked up a lot of people's ears to my music, which is a good thing."
Even more impressively, the brilliant video for 'Floating' – which features repeated slow-mo shots of pieces of rotten fruit exploding off Egan's face – has now been viewed almost 1.2 million times on YouTube.
"That actually had nothing to do with The Raconteurs, that was because of the video," he explains. "The YouTube editors featured the video and it took off with a life of its own. So it has had well over a million hits now."
It must give you a warm fuzzy feeling inside...
"It's kind of cool until you read the comments and there's someone going, 'I wish they were throwing rocks at his head instead of fruit'. Ha ha! That kind of shit. But you get used to it."
Well, that's the internet for you – a hotbed of negative-minded malcontents!
"I know. All the trolls come out to play. But no, it was cool. Making a video which I was really proud of with people like M&E [Matthew Bolger and Emelie Lidström] who did the design and D.A.D.D.Y. [Design, Animation, Design, Design, Yay] who did the animation. I was so proud of that video and just expected it to do what normal videos do for Irish acts, and next thing there's like a million people watching. It was cool."
Despite the negative online comments, Egan claims not to be especially bothered by criticism. Indeed, he tries to use bad reviews to his advantage.
"What I find with reviews is, the worse they are, in a way that gives you more strength to go on. But if you get one where it's really well measured and it's kind of average, they're the ones that really burn. If you get a shit review, you go, 'Well fuck you!' and throw it away. If you get a review that goes, 'This is just alright' they're the ones that actually burn more."
He throws his arms in the air and mock screams, "I DON’T WANT TO BE AVERAGE! I DON’T WANT TO BE AVERAGE!"
He's been working hard on the next Jape album and has already written most of the songs.
"It's kind of the relationship between artists and art, basically," he says of his lyrical themes. "That’s the main point."
How do you mean?
"Well it's hard to define, really. It's more like the fact that once you create something, it then has a life of its own. So that's one theme that... I'm mining that particular bad boy quite a lot. That, and the point where you reach around 30 and you have to prioritise something in your life that's a steady thing to keep you going. And trying to find that thing, where you realise that you can't be drinking and taking the piss all the time. It's trying to find some sort of key to unlock your life and not drive you to the depths of despair."
Have you been to the depths of despair?
"Well I was definitely down, you know," he shrugs. "That's all. Everybody gets down. It's just that I wasn't finding happiness in the right places. I was trying to find a place where you can find happiness, but it's sort of a slower-burning happiness and it's harder to get when you work at different things that might have more longevity, it's not terribly exciting but it just keeps you from going mad."
Are you in a relationship?
"Yeah, I'm getting married in October. We've been going out for six years."
And do you find it hard being away on tour?
"Em… yeah. Yeah, I mean, I do, but also this is what I do. Now, I'd much prefer to be at home making music, writing and recording, than being on the road. I'd much prefer that but, I mean, it's a necessary evil. There's no point touring unless you've got something new to say to the audience. Especially if you are going around Ireland a lot. People will go, 'I've seen that show before.'"
Although he says the new songs are coming thick and fast, Egan went through a serious bout of writer's block after releasing Ritual. It was one of the worst experiences of his life.
"That was like, you've got nothing now, you know what I mean? You're scared enough being an artist because you don't know where the money's going to come from, but if you stop writing – I did that for two or three months – it's like someone is tearing your soul out. I started drinking every day, in complete despair."
Had you suffered from writer's block before?
"Nah, I never had it in my entire life. It was after Ritual came out, and Ritual had garnered a little bit of praise, nothing fuckin' crazy, but a little bit. And I kind of felt that, Jesus, now maybe I should do another thing like that. But I couldn't write it. I just couldn't write it. And then I discovered this other way, and went, 'This is working so I'll go with that.' And I just had to go there."
The new Jape material is apparently quite different and he's unsure how fans will react: "I'm not so much scared, but I don't know how people are going to listen to it. It's a weird thing because when people go to Jape, I really know how to make the place go ballistic, I really rock the crowd. But I don't feel like doing it anymore. And it's a bit scary because is it going to be possible to keep going by throwing that in the bin? But then, in the back of my head, I'm going, 'If that does fall on its arse, I'll just do something else.'"
Whatever people make of Jape's new musical direction, it's obvious that Egan is very much the real artistic deal. Although he's burning with passion and talent, he's under no great illusions about his place in the wider scheme of things.
"We'll see what happens, Olaf," he shrugs. "I'm just one fuckin' dude making music and there are millions of people in the world, and the stuff I'm doing is not that important in the great scheme of things – but it's something I just have to do and I'm lucky enough to be able to do it."
A few moments later, tour manager Una Molloy walks in the door with the lovely Lisa Hannigan in tow. Wearing a vintage navy polka-dot dress and her dark hair in a long ponytail, the 28-year-old is even more beautiful in the flesh than I'd been anticipating from her press shots. Somewhat surprisingly, she's also far more earthy than I'd been led to expect. When I offer to buy her a drink, she declines saying, "No thanks, I'll be burping through the gig if I have a beer now."
Her soundcheck has just finished and now it’s Jape's turn. Egan downs his drink in one, warmly shakes my hand, and departs with a cheery, "Later, Hot Press dudes!"
Hannigan breaks into a grin as she watches him leave.
"Richie's amazing, isn't he?" she says. "He's such craic. Not that many people can come into a tour situation like this and hit it off with everybody. You don't think that you're cliquey, but you definitely are as a band on the road. You have all your in-jokes and silly stuff that you can talk about for ages, and Richie just arrived in as part of it and immediately, you know, has everyone in stitches all the time. He's so enthusiastic about life, in general. It's amazing to be around him. I've never spent that much time with him before, I just met him at parties. He has this big happy head on him, it's brilliant."
You weren't a little miffed that he beat you to the Choice Prize?
"Ah no, of course not!" she laughs. "I thought it went to the right person, to be honest. Not at all, I thought the best man won, in as much as you can with a prize like that. We were away in the States at the time and were all listening on the radio, and there was a resounding cheer when Jape got it. Having said that, it's not nice to follow him in gigs... or in interviews!"
Although Hannigan has been a household name for several years (in indie households, at least), she's only now beginning to get used to playing the promotional game for herself. A native of Kilcloon, Co. Meath, she became involved in the music business when she met and began working with Kildare singer-songwriter Damien Rice in 1998.
Rumoured to have been involved romantically as well as musically, the pair recorded two mega-successful albums (O and Nine Songs) and spent several years touring the world together. Although many would argue that she was the secret of his success, Hannigan remained very much in the background everywhere but on the stage.
"I never would have done any interviews or, you know, experienced that side of it when I was working with Damien. I mean there was no call for me, it wasn't my record or my gigs so I wouldn't have felt right giving an interview about it."
Their creative partnership came to an abrupt end backstage at a gig in Munich two years ago. Moments before they were due to perform, Rice informed her that her services would no longer be required. He played the show alone, leaving her to be comforted by members of support act The Magic Numbers. Deeply upset, Hannigan flew to America the following morning and hasn't seen him since.
"I was upset, but I wasn't distraught," she recalls. "I went to New York for a while because a friend of mine was over there, and I thought that if I went home I would be quite down. You can't really be down in New York so I went there. And I just walked around for a week and, you know, got my head together."
And did you decide at that point that you were going to launch your own solo career?
"I think I knew that already. It was more just, 'Okay, now I have the time to do it.' Get on with it, really. I always wanted to do it, it was just a timing thing. I was working away writing songs, doing different demos here and there, thinking that I was gonna work towards it, but at just such a slow pace. You know, I suppose I thought I was going to do it concurrently. I hadn't made that leap in my head that I had to not be in that in order to do my own thing properly."
Arguably, Rice did you a serious favour then. You wouldn't be here today, promoting your own solo career and playing your own shows, if he hadn't cut you loose that night in Munich.
She looks unconvinced: "I suppose so, yeah. Yeah, sure." She shrugs her shoulders.
Do you think maybe that's what he thought he was doing?
"I really don’t think so!" she guffaws. "I really don't think that was what he was thinking. But it doesn't really matter now, you know. I'm glad that it happened. I don't care how it happened."
Has Rice heard Sea Sew?
"I don't know. I imagine he has, but I haven't heard anything about it. We haven't been in touch."
Sorry – you're probably bored of all the Damien Rice questions at this point, but it was where you served your musical apprenticeship.
"It's fine. It was a couple of years ago, that's the only thing. I kind of forget the ins and outs of it a bit. We worked together for years and years, it was a big long time. And I wouldn't even say it was an apprenticeship because that's just what I did, and what we all did together. I think it just came to the end of its natural... Em, we hadn't played any new songs for a good long time either, so I think I started to find that a little wearing."
As it happens, Hannigan still has some friends and colleagues from her Damien Rice touring days around her: "Yeah. Musician-wise, I play with Tom Osander, who played drums with Damien, and Shane Fitzsimons who used to play the bass with him, and Vyvienne Long who played the cello, she played on the record. But then those people are just my friends, people that I've known since I was 18, so it was quite natural, it wasn't odd. It would have been more odd, I think, if I'd worked with different people. It certainly would have been more difficult in terms of getting up and doing it in front of anyone."
You must've all played hundreds of shows with Rice over the years, but how many solo shows have you done at this stage?
"I recently did a 42-date tour of the States supporting Jason Mraz, so that was pretty full on. It was 40 minutes a night, and that was more gigs than we'd done, ever. So that was a bit daunting, but it was great. Before that, I'd played about 35 shows. So we kind of piled them on, but it was the best way of doing it. The Mraz tour was cool. We kind of got ourselves together and just had fun mostly, and travelled around America. There's not really anything to complain about. It was nerve-wracking."
Do you find that you're a lot more wrecked at the end of one of your own shows?
"Yeah! Well, I suppose I'm doing a lot more singing. So it's a lot more effort, I suppose, and I don't drink on the tour anymore because if I get sick I can't really shy away. I try to live healthier now, more than I normally would."
Do you like a drink?
"I drink when I'm at home, but not to excess. I don't wake up face down in a pool of my own sick very often!"
When was the last time that happened?
"Ha ha! It must have been never, actually."
You recently told the Irish Times that you're planning on running the Dublin Marathon this year.
"Eh, allegedly, yeah… supposedly. There's talk of us doing an American tour around that time, in which case I wouldn't be able to, which probably wouldn't be the worst thing in the world. But yeah, myself and my manager, decided we were going to."
So how often, and how far, would you jog?
"Depends. When I go home I'll be more good at training. But on this tour, the first jog I did was this morning. It was pretty woeful. Myself and Donagh [Molloy] went for it, went for a little run about, and waved at all the rowers and stuff, and then just walked most of the way back."
You're shattering all of my preconceptions here! I kind of had you pegged as a yoga, jogging, exercising type hippie chick!
"No, not really," she laughs. "The running, I just did because I'm really, really shit at running. So I just wanted to do something I was bad at. But no, no yoga. And never trust a hippy. That's my mantra! People often think I’m a lot more hippy-dippy than I am!"
You're appearing on Jools Holland in two nights. Have you done the show before?
"I did it a few years ago with Damien. This will be very different because this time I actually have to start the song and dance a bit. Not have to dance, but I do tend to do a lot of uncoordinated movements. Yeah, it looks a bit frightening, actually, when I look back on it. It's stressful doing television and actually having to see the consequences."
You recently performed in the US on The Colbert Report, a satirical political show that doesn't normally feature up-and-coming musical acts. How did that come about?
"Yeah, that was amazing. It was very unexpected as well, which I liked, and it was very… it was quite natural in that Stephen Colbert was just flicking around the internet and saw a video we'd made with Donal Dineen in Dingle.
"And yeah, he somehow came across it. I think he was looking for Sean Hannity or something, he's some right-wing correspondent. And he just said he was there with his wife in bed beside him, had his earphones on and was flicking around. So that was amazing. He just said to his 'people', for want of a better word, 'Who are they and are they around, and will they come to do the show?' So we said, 'Of course'."
Do you prefer writing and recording music to touring and promoting it?
"I think I probably prefer touring. I love writing and recording, and the way we did the record was we did it in two weeks. We just lashed it out, which is definitely the way I would like to record in general. I'm not very… I wouldn't be sitting at home twiddling and stuff."
Tell me about your creative process when it comes to writing songs. Do you carry a notebook?
"Yeah, I do. Each song has kind of been different. I might have a line or something, and then I'll just go for a walk, and sing away to myself and see where it leads. By the end, I might have a verse or two verses. I just try and distract myself enough that I can write something so that you're not looking at a blank piece of paper."
Are you working on a follow-up album yet?
"Yeah, but it's mostly in my head. I'm trying to get songs together. I have about five and we're playing a couple live. Richie is playing on one, actually. And yeah, just trying to bash them into some shape. But I think I need to go away and manage to get a bit of time on my own to do that. I also need really exciting things to happen to me – or to make really exciting things happen."
Are you romantically involved at the moment?
"Eh… no," she says, blushing slightly (she's notoriously shy about her private life). "It's hard to meet somebody when you're away all the time. Most of the lads in the band have girlfriends so, I think it's okay if you've already met someone, but it must be hard to meet someone when you're only there for the afternoon."
Do you mine your own personal life for your songs?
"I suppose you write about what you know. So sure, a lot of my songs are about me, most of the songs are about me and situations that I'm in. But they're not necessarily anything that I wouldn't… You know, I'm not really in anything that I feel protective about. I'm just looking at details and snapshots of things really, rather than my feelings, necessarily."
Are you an emotional type?
"I can be. I certainly have been known to weep at a couple of ridiculous movies and stuff. But not overly so, I don't think. I'm not ridiculous and I'm not particularly moody. Maybe the lads in the band would say different. Hopefully not. I can be moody when the time dictates it, but not wilfully."
Are you bossy?
"You'd probably have to ask the boys that. I don't think so. Maybe I am sometimes. If I know what I want then it's a lot easier to say it. And I prefer to know what I want than to not and to be a bit airy-fairy about it. It took me a while to be able to say, 'I don't really like that, can you play something else?' And to be like, 'That was alright.' I think the lads are all very nice to be saying, 'What would you like?' They have been very helpful to me in that way, bringing me out of my natural mouse manner."
Would you describe yourself as a feminist?
"A feminist? Eh… I'd be more of a, you know, an equal… an everybody equal than… I don't really know what 'feminist' means. I don't think anyone should be taken advantage of, or get less pay for the same work, or anything like that, but I wouldn’t go so far as to identify myself as a feminist. In terms of my work, I don't write music to project any kind of manifesto or anything. I just write songs, really."
But you're not drawing them from an internal inferno of hate or rage?
"No, no. I keep my rage inside," she laughs, dramatically pulling her hands to her chest.
What are you angry about?
"What am I angry about? To be honest, I'm not angry about anything at the moment. I'm too cheerful at the moment to be angry about something. There's a lot of things to be angry about in the world, in general. But in my little bubble I'm having the time of my life actually, hanging around with my mates, singing tunes."
When’s the last time you lost your rag?
"Lost my rag?"
Your temper.
"Oh, right. I got really upset because… I get a bit stressed if I… stuff like if… I don't want to say what I was going to say, I'm not being coy."
Say it!
"Something went up on a celebrity gossip website and I thought that my record company was giving it to them exclusively, which ended up not being the case, and I got really irate because of this thing that I had worked really hard on, I didn't want that to be its debut. It was just a rumour the record company had given away something they hadn't, but I thought they had. It was a music video [for 'Lille']. And I thought that it was debuted on a celebrity gossip website."
Okay. That's not all that big a deal!
"Well it was for me because I didn't want that to be the kind of thing that… you know, it's not my buzz. The idea of being on a gossip website as a person would have been pretty awful for me."
You've managed to stray away from the tabloid end of things so far.
She touches the wooden table for luck. "I think so."
What do you feel when you look at the likes of Britney Spears and Amy Winehouse?
"Oh I don't know, I feel really sorry for them actually. I think that must be a pretty horrible life to have people at you all the time. I get really stressed if I'm fussed by people, and to have people criticising you all the time, or even just people picking out your flaws and pointing and laughing, as if that was not a really rude thing that you would scold a child for, you know. It's mad how that works for those people who seem to… who knows how much unhappiness they are putting themselves up for. Once you get into that situation it must be horrible. God, I can't think of anything worse."
What’s the greatest public misconception about Lisa Hannigan?
"I think people think I'm less cheerful than I am because of the work that I do. It's funny when I'm around people who expect me to be more haggard or something. I'm just having fun."

Una Molloy returns to announce that everybody's waiting down the road in a nearby Chinese restaurant. The entire touring party is there when we arrive, and the introductions take a couple of minutes. Lisa's band is composed of drummer Tom Osander (who's also driving the tour bus), Una's trumpeter brother Donagh Molloy, bassist Shane Fitzsimons and the infamous pianist Gavin Glass. Mike McGrath is the front of house engineer, while the backline tech is 23-year-old Johnny 'Butters' McSharry.
They seem as nice a bunch of people as you could ever hope to meet. Indeed, the company is far better than the food – but not as bad as some of Egan's jokes. It turns out that Una, a Dubliner who owns her own booking company called Turning Pirate, is also Lisa's housemate in Ranelagh and one of her very best friends.
"Yeah, and my brother Donagh is in the band so it's all very close," she laughs.
Una tells me that the tour has been fairly hiccup free so far.
"It's been going very well. Really good reactions and everybody is being well behaved. It's great because everybody gets on really well with each other. As a bunch, everybody looks out for each other, and I think it's kind of nice having a couple of girls on the road; it probably changes the dynamic a little bit."
Although she has a very tight budget to work with, Una's trying to be creative with it.
"We had to try and come up with ways of doing things cheaply, and I'd be a big fan of trying to find nice cheap things as opposed to cheap shit things," she explains. "For example, accommodation – it's quite easy to just go and book in a bunch of Travel Lodges, but there's actually loads of really nice country guest houses that are cheaper and nicer and there's a friendly face there in the morning – and you can get an extra rasher! We're staying in a really nice place tonight."
She explains that a big part of her job is keeping people's spirits up.
"Tomo has two young kids, and they're small, and Shane has a fiancé at home and everybody definitely gets to a point over the course of the weeks where they're allowed to be a bit sad. But when that happens, I think everybody allows them to be a bit sad and gives them a bit of minding.
"But we haven't had any major incidents or fights. The most that happens is that somebody expresses the fact that they're not in the mood today, and gets a bit of time on their own, you know. But even things like in America, because it's all on such a budget we would have day rooms for showers but we'd be sleeping on the bus. And then we just take turns to stay in the day room, so somebody gets to stay in the day room and have the room to themselves for the night. So if someone is feeling a bit low, then, you know, you can find ways to give them treats."
Sadly, tonight's Chinese hardly falls into the 'treat' category. When we leave more than half of the food is left behind. Though perhaps that's for professional reasons. As we walk towards the venue, Egan tells me a hilarious story about onstage flatulence when he was out touring with a different band.
"We all totally stuffed our faces in this Indian place about an hour before the show," he laughs. "Everybody was farting like fuck up there. Dude, I'm tellin' ya, you did not want to be up on that stage."

The Academy's Zodiac Room isn't sold-out, but there's still a decent Sunday night crowd and it's about two-thirds full. Jape is up first. Short of stature and casually attired in blue jeans and a white shirt, Egan's an unlikely-looking rock star, but he plays that to his advantage, winning the crowd over with easy self-deprecating humour, and holding their attention with just an acoustic guitar and some great songs (though he uses a beat machine for 'Floating' and a new song called 'Graveyard').
His newer material is lyrically driven – songs like 'Speak Of The Devil' and 'Answer Me Before I Ask' – but I can’t see it alienating any of Jape's fans. If anything, it's an interesting progression for him. The Oxford audience certainly appreciated it.
Hannigan's show is positively stunning. From opening number 'Ocean And A Rock', she held the audience spellbound with her amazingly wistful voice. Looking extremely comfortable (and sartorially elegant in suits), the band expertly back her using drums, upright bass, glockenspiel, melodica, trumpet, guitar and piano, while she herself switches between harmonium, guitar and banjo .
Most of the setlist is drawn from Sea Sew, but she plays a few covers as well – Air's 'Playground Love', Bert Jansch's 'Courting Blues', The Mary Janes' 'Queen Of Hearts' and Sinatra's 'Lady And The Tramp'.
Hannigan never spoke a word onstage during her Damien Rice days so it's almost a surprise when she talks. She doesn't do very much in the way of inter-song banter, but before playing 'Venn Diagram' she asks if there are any students in the audience. Amazingly, only three or four hands are raised ("Oh gosh! Is that all? I thought we were in Oxford!"). Later she introduces the crowd to Butters as he hands her a guitar. "This is our roadie Butter, who's 23 today," she announces, "so you've got to give him 23 kisses, girls!"
Jape comes out to play guitar on a great new song called 'Brolly Beats' (so named because she came up with the rhythm by smacking an old umbrella off her leg). Una also briefly joins the band to play the stylophone. "It sounds like a goose!" Hannigan shrieks.
She finishes with 'Lille', but there's a sustained four minutes of applause genuinely demanding an encore. She returns to perform John Martyn's 'Couldn't Love You More' solo, before the band join her for Iron & Wine's 'Free Until They Cut Me Down'. They're all smiling when they take their final bow. Like she told me earlier, they're all having fun. It definitely shows.
There's a great celebratory mood, and a strong herbal smell, in the backstage dressing room afterwards. As befits his name, Gavin Glass is handling bar duties. "Sorry, but we're all out of glasses," he says, handing me a mug full of vodka and coke. Lisa isn't drinking, but she's happy to discuss the potential ingredients of a new cocktail she wants to invent called 'Downward Spiral'.
When Butters passes through the room, she asks him if he got his 23 birthday kisses. "I told the crowd that he's 23 today," she says. "Which strictly speaking is true. It's just not actually his birthday."
Although it was a good show, the mood is largely explained by the fact that they're nearing the end of the tour. After Jools and the London gig, the band have a full fortnight off before heading back to the States for a week of shows. Richie, meanwhile, is getting a train to Berlin and then onto Prague for some solo gigs ("I hate flying!").
There are no fixed plans for the night until Osander's mobile bleeps. It's an old musician friend from Oxford. He's actually texting from Australia to tell him that the world's best kebab is available in a nearby joint called 'The Bodrum'.
"The world's best kebab?" muses Osander. "This guy's really serious about his fast food. It's like his second major passion in life. He wouldn't say it was the world's best kebab unless it was really something special."
A serious 10-minute discussion ensues and eventually it's decided. Tonight, the world's best kebab. Tomorrow... the world.

Lisa Hannigan plays Cork Live At The Marquee (July 4); O'Keeffe's, Clonmel (5); Electric Avenue, Waterford (7); Kyteler's, Kilkenny (8); Roisin Dubh, Galway, (9 & 10); Caffrey's, Oldecastle (31); Cork X Southwest, Skibbereen (August 1); St. John's Church, Limerick (6); and Electric Picnic, Stradbally (September 4)

Japes plays Electric Picnic, Stradbally (September 4 to 6)