Dan Mangan: Live Review

 

Let this be a personal apology to Dan Mangan. I didn’t understand Oh Fortune when I first heard it. Full of loud instrumental breakdowns, with Mangan’s vocals taking a back seat, it was a ballistic contrast to his previous efforts, Postcards and Daydreaming and Nice, Nice, Very Nice. Many of the songs washed over me without leaving the mildest residue, and those that did penetrate my consciousness pierced only for a chorus or so. I’m sorry Dan. I was wrong – this is just an album that you should definitely hear live first.

Ex-Broken Socialite Jason Collett took the stage first. I was surprised at the instant silence which descended when he began singing. This was a crowd that really took their singer-songwriters very seriously. Simple, capo’ed chord progressions underpinned some insightful lyrics. The excellent Talk Radio was the pinnacle of the set, with Collett paraphrasing Noam Chomsky, paraphrasing members of the public. “I want to rob a bank” is still reverberating around my head.

With Collett exiting the stage as unassumingly as he entered it, Mangan and band – made from labelmates and members of the Crackling – were up. Much of the set comprised of newer material from Oh Fortune and songs emerged and descended into mires of feedback and heavily played chords. Over the top of the myriad noise, however, shone the wonderfully intricate fiddle; Mangan’s ear for catchy melodies continues and is best displayed live, where your senses have no choice to but to cling to the insistent strings as they rise above the other instrumentation.

 

 

The best example of this is the wonderful ‘About As Helpful As You Can Be Without Being Any Help At All’, a perfect display of Mangan’s talent as a craftsman and lyricist. Verses give way to an uplifting and exuberant bridge, without a visible chorus, but singable nonetheless.

Desperate to sing along, the audience jumped upon renditions of ‘Robots’, ‘Sold’ and a heartfelt performance of the touching ‘Basket’. The ‘this is the bit where you join in’ sentiment was wasted on a group of people who had been unashamedly singing from the very start. Taking advantage of this desire to be included, the set was finished with the communal catharsis of ‘So Much For Everyone’, choral harmonies overseen by a humble Mangan, stood on the bar watching his crowd intently.

And that’s where Oh Fortune struggles – you really have to see it live, because Dan Mangan really does make you his crowd.