Review of Example at The Academy on February 18th 2011
Review by Kevin Donnellan
Photos by Sean Smyth
The Academy is awash with blue WKD. Plenty of hair gel on the lads and extensions for the girls. This is new. But Example is in town. Him of “Kickstarts” fame. You know the one: “…And the love kickstarts again.” Twas hard to escape it last summer. My expectations are through the floor for this one. But the lads are out in force tonight which is unusual enough for a Friday night these days, so Example it is.
A DJ is warming up a crowd that is barely in need of the encouragement. Example’s appearance coming up to the half nine mark is greeted raucously. Hands in the air, proper whoops of encouragement. It reminds you haw tame most indie crowds can be. All hunched backs and polite applause. But there’s no chins being scratched here. Mr Elliot Gleave of London follows his bands onto stage. I’d been expecting more of a 1 MC and 2 DJs set-up. The band route is the right one, every song is given an extra bit of oomph.
But it’s Example himself who’s the revelation. Rapping is generally one of the more hit and miss elements of live music. But his delivery is effortless. No catching his breath. Never drowned out. No losing the thread of a verse. And in between songs he’s great at encouraging a crowd that have been in the palm of his hand from the start. It’s Friday night and he’s not letting the crowd away with a half-arsed effort.
The crowd, for their part are getting well and truly locked, myself included. It’s all very teenage disco, a girl falls over to the delight of her friends. Young lads seem caught between fighting or trying for the shift. The six lads in their late twenties at the back near the entrance (yes, that was us) are feeling a bit out-of-place. Maybe another beer? And another? It being a Friday helps of course but the energy of Example’s performance is definitely twisting the arm of the few people with plans to achieve anything the next day.
The mandatory goodnight-Dublin-oh-wait-we’re-back-for-an-encore bit happens and you’d get short odds on what the last song was. Can you guess? The crowd lifts itself one more time and fairly abruptly (I was hoping for a 8 minute freak-out, but then I am a chin-stroker). A full house must head off into the city to try to recapture the energy of the earlier 60 minutes. Good luck the them. I’m three hours away from being refused from a nightclub, it’s Example’s fault of course, but I forgive him.
