Iris Dement in The National Concert Hall | Review

Iris Dement in the National Concert Hall on 8th August 2013

Sixteen years after the last, Arkansas country singer Iris Dement has returned with a new album in ‘Sing The Delta’, no small sabbatical in anyone’s book. Late in tonight’s National Concert Hall gig, Dement tells a story of her last visit to Ireland where she played at a festival and was given a postcard inscribed with a Martin Luther King quote. The encounter inspired Justice Rolls Like Water, which she then sings for the reverential crowd. It’s just one of many instances in tonight’s understated performance where Dement’s softly-spoken asides suddenly flourish into the powerful, startling singing voice for which she has become renowned.

A black backdrop dotted with starlights hangs behind the singer, who goes it alone tonight with just piano and acoustic guitar. Mama Was Always Tellin’ Her Truth goes out to her mother, as does something from every gig she plays, she tells us. Before The Colours Fade takes a more bluesy slant, before the title track of her new album. It’s one that came about when she felt she “better hunker down and see if I can get a few more songs.” Hers is an easy and congenial rapport with the crowd, filled with wryly humorous and self-deprecating stories. One tale of pre-show nerves causing her to cancel a gig seems hard to believe, so good-humoured is the atmosphere in the room. In any event, she felt guilty about this no-show, wrote half a song, but “didn’t feel guilty enough to finish it.” We do get to hear the finished product though, and The Kingdom Has Already Come is as good a way as any to atone.

Russian poet Anna Akhmatova’s words are set to music by Dement on Like a White Stone, closing a run of new tracks and the more mellow section of tonight’s gig. Things change when she leaves her piano stool to stand with the acoustic for “a little funeral tune”, and one of her better known tracks, Let The Mystery Be. The crowd quietly cheer recognition, while the lights reflect off the body of her guitar, casting shafts of shimmering light around the walls and levels of the venue. During Easy’s Getting’ Harder Every Day, the guitar is the perfect accompaniment, as Dement’s playing style almost reticently pulls the song back from its inevitable conclusion.

Morning Flower sees her back at the piano – “I’ve forgotten how to play by myself…this is terrifying” she tells us, having been on tour with her band this last year. Her playing takes on a saloon bar style for He Reached Down, while the theme – conversely – goes biblical, before she finishes up on a set highpoint with a gorgeous, lengthy Out Of The Fire. A standing ovation is duly offered, and no sooner is she gone than she’s back, as the inevitable calls for a certain song emanate from the front rows…relax dudes, it’s coming. “I’m tired of being the only noise in the room” says Dement as she invites the crowd to join her on her most famous track, and a soft accompaniment does indeed drift from the seats and stalls for My Town. We finish then, on the slightly more upbeat, that’s-your-lot sentiment of Go Ahead And Go Home.

It may have been a gig where some may have felt self-conscious rustling their bags of Werther’s Originals, such was the hush and church-like ambience in the NCH main venue, but this was really all about Dement’s voice. Maybe we’ll see her tear it up with the band sometime soon. But for now, this was a chance to hear one of the more idiosyncratic voices in country in an as-close-to-natural way as you’ll get without sitting in on a backroom lock-in.