Words & Images: Max Falvey
After having not donned the stage of Dublin’s 3Olympia Theatre in over 3 years, four-piece modern pop masters Wild Youth finally made their return on the 27th of October for the final show of their Irish tour, playing their way through their fantastic eternally danceable discography, with a few special treats for their hometown audience along the way.
Elle Coves began the night with a sweet one-woman show, switching between acoustic guitar and piano for her very sweet and delicate set of songs. Telling the crowd that she was ‘fresh out of school after doing the leaving cert’, and that she has no official music released yet, she wanted to do something the audience would know, and did a fantastic toned down version of Bruce Springsteen’s ‘Dancing In The Dark’. It was a wonderful 6-song set.
Irish star Erica Cody took to the stage next, and while playing two songs and asking the crowd which one should be her next single, ‘Crybaby’ won, she also did a cover of Beyoncé’s ‘Break My Soul’.
Then Wild Youth finally strolled onto the stage, taking their various places and podiums to such a hometown ovation. They opened with the groovy ‘Next To You’, with their show receiving a massive production step up in the last few years since I last saw them perform. They kept the dancey vibes going with, of course, ‘Making Me Dance’, which had a nice zinging electric guitar outro – a nice bit of evolution to their most popular song. Frontman David Whelan wasn’t as animated in this show as he has been in the past, but this is probably due to more lead guitar duties, but the band overall seemed much more professional and tight than before.
Halfway through the show, the band had the audience sing happy birthday to audience members Paula and Fiona, which was a lovely moment, but followed by the best part of the night. David said his whole family were in one of the boxes on the side of the venue, and asked how he could get up there. He proceeded to sit on the edge of the seating box over the standing audience, and play ‘Through The Phone’ completely unplugged. It was very faint as the silent theatre swallowed up his performance, but it was absolutely magical, and one of the best things I’ve witnessed in the venue. And after the encore, seemingly with nothing left up their sleeves, the band brought out Aslan’s guitarist Billy McGuinness, and did a rousing performance of ‘Crazy World’ to end an absolutely kickass show. I loved every minute of it, and can’t wait to see these boys perform again. Thank you for reading.
