It’s Jape’s third Belfast gig in a year, it’s Friday night and Richie Egan is in his usual boisterous mood. The crowd, seemingly half-composed of the city’s well lubricated indie fraternity, is as well. But something isn’t quite right on stage. Egan and his two cohorts are surrounded by banks of vintage hardware with nary a computer in sight, but opening tracks ‘Christopher And Anthony’ and ‘Strike Me Down’ are hamstrung by a frankly appalling sound mix which manages to mask the guitars. The riff on the latter, which is utterly key to the song, is inaudible.
From then on in the problems are sorted out, and though the nagging thought remains from previous shows that Egan has trouble reproducing his songs live, the strength of the material and his own talent for working the crowd pulls him through. And for all the exotic equipment on stage, Jape is a pop act, each song a treasure trove of hooks, danceable rhythms and slyly amusing – and often affecting – lyrics. Halfway into the show, he tires of the gaping chasm separating punters and stage, beckoning us forward so that we can see the whites of his bulging eyes. That cements the party atmosphere, and the last 25 minutes put right the dodgy beginning.
The lush production of Ritual may be missing, but songs like ‘Graveyard’, accurately introduced as being about “shagging” in one, survive without it. ‘Floating’ is greeted like the all-conquering hit single it probably should have been, before Egan takes his time in introducing ‘Phil Lynott’. The frontman, clearly enjoying himself, chats to the crowd with all the relaxed confidence of a man who has been in this business for more than 10 years, as he has. “We’ll have a drink, or several,” he promises as he looks forward to the post-gig club. ‘Lynott’ spawns the shoutalong moment of the night in the immortal line “Look at the fucking moon!”, before the usual closer, the fantastic “I Was A Man”, ends things on a thumping, body-contorting high.
Jape shows might be improved by a better band – the continued use of a percussionist playing half a drumkit is a mite puzzling – but they are never less than entertaining, even when the sound is slightly off. And when Egan has songs like these to call on, he can’t go too far wrong. Chris Jones
Posted on: 27th January 2010
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