‘CELEBRATE WHAT IT IS TO BE YOUNG’

Jape put on a great show to launch the new album, Oceans Of Frequency, at the Button Factory on Saturday last. Support on the night came from Goodtime, and Moths, who warmed up the crowd with well-received sets.

The audience enjoyed the energetic show as Richie Egan and band performed newer numbers such as ‘Scorpio’ alongside older favourites ‘Graveyard’, and ‘I Was A Man’. Mattie Bolger’s twangy guitar-lines contrasted well with the colourful synth fills throughout, to bring the songs to life in a live setting, particularly ‘One of Those Days That Just Feels So Long’ and ‘Hand of Fire’ (the latter performance being one of the night’s highlights). Predictably, when Jape played their biggest hit, ‘Floating’, the Button Factory’s dance floor became a mass of grooving-bodies and smiley-heads.

Aired live, the recent release ‘Lying On A Deathbed’ was funny and touching in equal measure, the lyric, ‘yous are all a pack of w*nkers down the back’ aimed no doubt at the minority of chattering folk at the rear of the venue. A four-to-the-floor, ‘Strike Me Down’ picked up the tempo again before the Richie proclaimed: ‘it’s great to be alive!’; fittingly, when Jape followed with ‘The Oldest Mind’, the song’s refrain of ‘celebrate what it is to be young’ encapsulated the playful and exuberant spirit of a great gig.

Photos: Alessio Michelini