FOY VANCE plus AARON SHANLEY (BELFAST NASHVILLE FESTIVAL) The Empire - 24th Feb 2011
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The night kicked off with Aaron Shanley playing to an already fairly busy Belfast Empire, getting even busier, to full compacity by the end of his set. Now despite a few technical difficulties at the start, his set seemed to go down rather well, and to be perfectly honest was the sort of crowd that Aaron should be gearing his music towards, as I have seen him in the past open in the Empire at nights such as "Gifted" where he has struggled to hold the attention of the audience. This is no fault of his own and not for lack of effort, its just the way it is when acoustic music is pitted against more energetic full band acts.
Anyway back to tonights gig. Aaron (accompanied on stage by Allie Bradley) delivered a really strong yet short set. The stand out tracks for me being "Find Me" and especially "Forget About Me" as by this stage he had the entire audience in silence with their full attention directed at the stage.
Aaron showed tonight that he truely is a product of Northern Ireland that we should be extremely proud of and I hope I'm not the only one expecting big things from this "Lisburn Lad" in the near future.
After a very short interval the man we all came to see, Foy Vance, took to the stage. He opened with a quirky and rather unusual track with a mixture of sounds from the loop station, what sounded like backing tracks (I may be wrong) and playing the acoustic guitar with a bow, which did give a very interesting "big" sound, although I did get a little bored after a while as it did drag on a bit.
Now it was a few songs in before Foy started to really get down to business and it was only then that the mood started to pick up in the room, by doing what he does best, and thats getting the audience to participate. He had just started to get the crowd going when he turned asked them "how's your ooh's and aah's?" and broke into "Shed A Little Light" one of his more famous tunes, with the entire Empire Music Hall singing "backing vocals" and hand clapping, and really was great banter, there wasn't a person I could see in the house not enjoying the gig by this stage. This was the same for "Make It Rain" audience participation from start to finish and again the whole room was buzzing.
Foy then pulled a piece of paper out of his pocket and began to sing a song he wrote in the hotel before the show, which I have to say I preferred to some of his other newer material as he played it on acoustic without the use of his Loop Station, which I feel he used a bit unnessessarily in a few tracks.
The mood had began to drop again by this stage, and clearly the drink had started to hit some members of the audience as the odd heckle came from near the back of the room, which led to Foy singing "move on baby 'cause you're a dick" which caused the crowd to erupt into laughter, which I must say is probably the best comeback to a heckle I've ever witnessed at a gig!
Now he had the full attention of the room again, there was no better time for him to utter the words "I wrote this one about sausages" again the audience erupts into laughter, due to this being in reference to "Homebird" being used on the Denny TV advert. He then sang "The orange was the size of a sausage to me" again the crowd erupts. Then he starts again "The orange was the size of a watermelon to me" now I've seen youtube videos of this before and have to say it looks incredible in the videos, but this didn't prepare me for how much of an amazing experience it actually is to be part of it. No exaggeration, every single member of the audience, myself included, sang "Homebird" word for word from start to finish, the hairs are standing on my neck just thinking about it!!! No prizes for guessing that this was the highlight of the night, and possibly the best moments of any gig I've ever attended.
No sooner had we got our breath back, Foy announces his last song of the evening and breaks into "Indiscriminate Act of Kindness" once again the vast majority of The Empire sang every single word, and those who didn't, did when when it came round to the chorus.
Time for the encore!
Foy comes back to the stage with his acoustic guitar and held his glass in the air and toasted The Empire audience with a limerick, "There are long ships, and there are tall ships, and there are ships that sail the sea, but the best ships are friendships, and may they always be", and gets a great response from the crowd.
The encore was just one song long, and was a beautiful tune called "Guiding Light" again with the audience participating singing the "backing vocals" and chorus "when I need to get home, you're my guiding light, you're my guiding light". One word, Fantastic!!!
All in all, a great nights entertainment, my only criticism of Foy Vance would be that I would have preferred to see him perform stripped without the Loop Station etc, as it took away from his set at times. Other notable events were the the assholes getting in a fight at the back of the room towards the end of the set, and the very obnoxious girl behind us who hushed us to the point that we moved, told you you'd get a mention!!! Despite this, I don't think anyone left The Empire dissapointed!!!
Review: Hugh G. Rection
Photos: Clair McAllister