Live Review: Paul Dempsey, Alexander Gow

Although opener Alexander Gow didn’t get bums off the floor for his one-man-and-his-electric-guitar set, his indie-rock was solid.

When on stage later on in the night with Paul Dempsey he managed to engage more with the audience; it’s easier to do stage banter when you’ve got another person on stage with you.

Paul Dempsey doesn’t need a backing band or anyone with whom to banter – 20 years in the business does that. It was just the man himself and his acoustic guitar, and that was who the crowd of mostly 30- and 40-somethings were here to see. Everyone stood and gathered close, prepared for the gospel of Dempsey.

What it is about Dempsey that always keeps attention, pulls at the heartstrings, is difficult quite to pinpoint. Alone with just an acoustic his voice wavers and soars, he’s able to connect and be bold in a way that doesn’t come out on record. But the performance is undeniably stripped back and poignant; it’s at times reserved and withdrawn, Dempsey testing out new songs and playing favourites like Bats and Ramona Was A Waitress without needing any of the effects of the record. This set stands as a counterpoint to the Something For Kate tour earlier this year which was all rock star energy and depth of sound: loud and unabashed.

He only has one solo record to play, but Something For Kate songs and B-sides, as well as those catchy but not yet polished new songs mean he’s never in want of another song. And it’s his songwriting that sets Dempsey apart from his peers: he has an eloquence and almost-sentimentalism, a way with imagery and metaphor that can’t be replicated. He opens with Something For Kate’s Private Rain and admits to having never played Song For A Sleepwalker on his own before, but it’s set closer Bird In A Basement and encore closer Begin that sum up the set and its power.