Review - Johnny Flynn at Cyprus Avenue

There was a moment at Johnny Flynn’s Cork show, just as the second support act was starting up, where gig companion and rock-brat-in-the-making, Agbonlahor’s Muireann, pulled from her bag … a punnet of strawberries.

“Want one?” she asked, spinning 360, punnet held aloft.

“Don’t mind if we do” said plenty. This is the kind of crowd you can expect at a Johnny Flynn gig: kooky sugar junkies in scruffy-chic. “Jesus,” said one of the lads*. “It’s like the cast of Skins in here.”

Well yes. Johnny Flynn is a bit of a hero to stylish flakes, a nu-folk fella with a delicious wordiness and melodic flair that coaxes deep-thinkers into dreams of drunken singalongs; imagine Yeats standing tall in the snug and belting out rebel songs. Mr. Flynn’s music is an intoxicating mix of lament, quip, and foot-stomping tuneage, which is why the ultra-discerning me was hugging the stage at Cyprus Avenue on Tuesday night. Having caught his stormer with his band, The Sussex Wit, at Electric Picnic, there was no way I was missing his solo jaunt to Cork. I was mad for another Johnny Flynn experience, and intrigued at the notion of catching a solo show.

Support came from Dublin rock-roots foursome The Riptide Movement, who roused me into leaving stiletto dents from pogoing on the floor, and Fiona Maria Fitzpatrick, a Cavan folk artist with a wonderfully clear voice and a selection of bonkers anecdotes featuring menacing cats and three-week-old ham. Such homemade-percussion, as inspired by the former, and easy rapport, as demonstrated by the latter, set the mood for the evening pretty early on; by the time Johnny Flynn arrived on stage, we were happy and flushed and full of strawberries.

Mr. Flynn is slight, almost fragile, with a disarmingly befuddled grin and a terrible grá for self-deprecation. There isn’t a mammy in Ireland who wouldn’t want to feed him sandwiches and make him tay. But he’s possessed of an ageless, powerful voice that could beat the black dog from anyone’s front door; instantly recognisable, instantly addictive. From the first notes of opening song Lost and Found, everyone around me reined in the chatter and stopped still, even Muireann, who had never heard of Johnny Flynn before I dragged her along and should have still been coasting on her strawberry high. With only his guitar along as backing for that voice, Flynn’s set centred, naturally, around his quieter songs - Brown Trout Blues, Shore To Shore, The Wrote And The Writ - each performed as songs their creator was still very much in love with. Fiona Maria Fitzpatrick took Laura Marling’s place on The Water (confirmed as third single from Been Listening, and out November 1st) and made it her own, while Flynn’s rendition of Been Listening was supernaturally good, as genuinely heartfelt as a dying realisation. The set finished with a rousing, bouncing performance of his anthem Tickle Me Pink, which we were all encouraged to sing along to; a live chorus helped when he was without his band, he said. There was an awkward beat between our screaming for One More Choon and Flynn’s starting into Wayne Rooney; “I still haven’t got this encore thing” he explained, all playful sheepishness and floppy blonde hair, whereupon I believe a number of ladies in the front row swooned (probably those whose metabolisms had not been bolstered by strawberries).

The interesting thing here is that I’ve seen two very different Johnny Flynn sets this month, one with full band, one solo, and I still haven’t heard all I want to hear from him. I feel like I could easily catch a third, even a fourth gig from him this year before I’d be satisfied with the experience - I have yet to hear him play Howl or Kentucky Pill, for God’s sake. His Cork set was as unpredictable as the one he played with The Sussex Wit at Electric Picnic - EP’s didn’t feature the crowd-pleasing Tickle Me Pink or lead single Kentucky Pill, Tuesday’s didn’t include current big-hitter Barnacled Warship … this means that there’s a certain organic feeling about watching Flynn play live, a romantic notion that he’s coasting flawlessly along with whatever notes come into his head. It’s a dreamy, almost soporific atmosphere to get tangled up in, and Flynn is very, very good at spinning it.

The only issue I had with Tuesday night’s gig was that the crowd enthusiastically got behind all of the songs from first album A Larum, but were much more reticent with his newer stuff. To which I say: fucking buy Been Listening, you cretins! It’s amazing!

Yup, I definitely wondered if Tuesday night’s supercool crowd really deserved Johnny Flynn. It goes to show, I suppose; you can lead a kook to strawberries, but you can’t guarantee they’ll eat them coz they’re hungry, rather than because they think their munching will be photogenically twee.

Johnny Flynn plays Arthur’s Day (that’s today, timing fans!) in Galway. His second album, Been Listening, is out now.

*When I say “one of the lads”, I mean Cork cartoonist and … yes, dammit, genuine Irish hero Alan Moloney, whose anti-Skins tirades are further documented at his webcomic here.