A Different View with Dave O’Connell

When you were a small fella tuning into Radio Luxembourg or the fledgling 2FM on your plastic earpiece, it would defy all logic to ever imagine that one of the biggest pop stars of those childhood days would one day be singing those same hits and more in the lounge of your small Connemara pub.

Michael Coyne’s Gastropub is indeed small, but it’s perfectly formed – and last week he managed to fit in 60 lucky people for a sit-down gig with Lloyd Cole, as outside the evening sun set over Galway Bay and the Aran Islands, all viewed from the spectacular height of his Cill Chiaráin pub.

Of course it made little or no economic sense because there was no Oasis-style dynamic ticket pricing here. In many ways, Michael was just facilitating a likeminded audience of a certain age, most of whom probably owned original vinyl versions of Rattlesnakes and Easy Pieces.

The truth is that Lloyd Cole is performing better than ever; the quiff is gone but there’s a full head of silver and that same intensity and dedication to lyrics that marked his original arrival as a little more special than the rest.

He’s self-effacing about his singing and guitar-playing, but this was pure magic; to be literally sitting within two yards of the man as he sang through his songbook of classics – Perfect Skin, Rattlesnakes, Forest Fire, Are You Ready to be Heartbroken, Lost Weekend, Brand New Friend, Cut Me Down, Jennifer She Said – which sounded all the better when played with nothing more than his own guitar.

He can’t have done many smaller gigs than this in his life but there was no coasting through it either. In ways it was trickier than a stadium gig because he could see every single one of the audience in front of him.