Pete Yorn

The name Pete Yorn means little on these shores so far. In the States, however, the young, talented, albeit MTV-friendly singer/songwriter had gone through the Strokes-like cycle of next-best-thing to sell out, before he had even released his debut album musicforthemorningafter.

The fact that almost the entire American population of Dublin was up the front shaking their stars and stripes notwithstanding, at The Shelter, Yorn and his band had a pretty blank canvas on which to paint their honest and catchy rock and roll.

The boys began with a lopey cover of the Smiths ‘Hang The DJ’, and ended with Bowie’s ‘Little China Girl’, guitars a-rockin’ and Yorn’s scratchy silk voice (not to mention his pout) doing the originals considerable justice. He took us through most of musicforthemorningafter – emotion-filled, grunge songs, addictive and surprisingly familiar-sounding.

‘Strange Condition’ saw a battle between dirty guitar crescendos, slightly overpowering rushing drums and Yorn’s superb voice.

‘Just Another’, ‘Your Side’ and ‘Sense’ resonated of Joy Division, The Replacements, Smashing Pumpkins and the Cure but some of the lyrics were very dodgy (You and I/We were two of a kind/I hate to say it/But you’ll never relate/What makes you tick?).

‘Life On A Chain’ – on which Yorn finally succumbs to his thinly-veiled honky-tonk tendencies with a lil’ piano and some naked guitar – was the highlight of the night, like The Pixies being let loose in a barn dance.

He would want to try smiling a little more, though. I mean, who could resist the cries of “Ride!” coming from the chicks in the corner?