Live at The Academy, Dublin

“Come on you muthafuckas, get laaaaarge!”
Mark Daniel Ronson, I’m appalled. What would Amy Winehouse say?
Perhaps I shouldn’t be so shocked – a lot can change in two years. The last time the slickest man in pop performed in Dublin, he had black hair; he was dating fresh-faced supermodel Daisy Lowe; and he was strumming quietly along to other people’s songs. Nowadays, he’s sporting a dyed grey quiff, he’s dating fresh-faced actress Josephine De La Baume and he’s playing (and singing!) mostly his own material.
Saxes and flugels were synonymous with the Mark Ronson brand back in 2008, but with new album Record Collection, the 35-year-old fame magnet has yanked himself out of 1968 and plonked himself right back down again, sans brass – in 1985, that is.
All eight members of the Business Intl are equipped with their own personal mini NASA Space stations tonight, complete with a set of impressive-looking futuristic drum pads. Ronson kicks things off on his lonesome with 8-bit synth ditty ‘Circuit Breaker’ and with moody lighting on show, the whole thing could be a scene from Queen Of Outer Space.
As if filling Zsa Zsa Gabor’s heels isn’t daunting enough, Mark must recreate his jettisoned Big Band Sound, using only some crafty guitar riffs. Does it work? Well, just about!. Alex Greenwald steps in for Radiohead’s ‘Just’, The Smiths’ ‘Stop Me If You Think You’ve Heard This One Before’ and The OC theme tune (Greenwald wrote it with his old band Phantom Planet), while The Pipettes’ Rose Elinor Dougall lends her pipes to the Kaiser Chiefs’ ‘Oh My God’. Indie chameleon Greenwald gets top marks (he later performs both parts of new Boy George and Andrew Wyatt duet ‘Somebody To Love Me‘), but Ms.Dougall’s Lahndan drawl just isn’t special enough to hold our attention.
It takes dapper rapper Izza Kizza to breathe real life into the show, bounding on stage for a chimesome hip hop number ‘Ooh Wee’ – which is Ronson’s best track for my money.
Soon enough, the Business Intl are dismissed and Ronson takes to an equally futuristic set of decks to spin the likes of Depeche Mode’s ‘Just Can’t Get Enough’ and Pharoah’s ‘Simon Says’ flipping from effortlessly cool rhythm pod master to loveable dork, his gangly white boy moves not quite matching up to Kizza’s or MDMR’s Amanda Warner’s.
Next, Kizza and Warner’s vocal two-ing and fro-ing helps make the explosive ‘Bang Bang Bang’ the choon of the night – that is, until an encore of ‘The Bike Song‘ and mega smash ‘Valerie‘ rounds proceedings off in true Mark Ronson style... whatever that is.
Well, he’s not an artistic genius, that’s for sure. Hell, he’s not even a brilliant performer – but he created the glorious sound that’s making everybody dance tonight and for that reason alone, we had better just keep on getting laaaaarge.