A somewhat nervous silence descends on Whelan’s. Mark Geary is finally perched on the stage, guitar in hand, having had to postpone the original gig back in November when the offer came in to support The Swell Season in Berlin. Tonight, promoting 2008’s Opium, the hush of the crowd suggests this could be quite a pivotal point in the New York based Dubliner’s career.

“Could it be two years since I played Whelan’s?” he asks the crowd as he tunes up. Indeed’n it could Mark. Perhaps preparing for the worst, he’s brought with him a large crowd of Gearys for moral support...

But he needn’t have worried. There’s certainly a decent sized crowd on this cold Thursday night, and Geary’s fans hang on his every word. Letting us know we’re welcome to shout out requests, he starts things off with Opium’s ‘Come Little Fire’. After a couple of tracks from 2004’s Ghosts, he’s clearly getting into the swing of things. “It takes a couple of songs to relax,” he muses. True to his word, he plays what he’s asked, and the result is a well-balanced set ranging nicely over all four of his albums.