Caught Live: Micah P. Hinson @ Crawdaddy, Dublin

 
Michael Paul Hinson – the full name by which tonight’s main attraction introduces himself – is a decent old sort. As with other similarly accomplished and accessible songwriters – Kurt Wagner, Neko Case and Joe Pernice are three that spring to mind – being an uber-fan is not a necessary prerequisite for enjoying oneself at a Hinson show; he’s the type you can introduce a mate or a date to without much fear of them spending a long evening checking their text messages. And let’s face it – on a rainy Thursday night in Dublin, just hours after another shitload of bad news has spewed forth from government buildings, an enjoyable evening is just what we’re all after.

The singer is alone onstage this evening. The Pioneer Saboteurs – his backing troupe’s most recent incarnation for this year’s album of the same name – have forsaken the trip, so all the wiry Texan has for company is a bottle of Sprite, one glass filled with water and a guitar bearing the Woody Guthrie-referencing slogan “This Machine Kills Fascists”. A near-capacity Crawdaddy crowd tonight are so respectful throughout that you can’t so much hear a pin drop – you can actually hear Chromeo’s fat basslines reverberating through the venue from next door in Tripod. The occasional clink of glass behind the bar is the only interference, as Hinson delivers hushed tunes like ‘Sweetness’ and ‘Seven Horses Seen’ from album number four. ‘Tell Me It Ain’t So’, from 2008’s almost-great Micah P. Hinson and the Red Empire Orchestra, sees the Texan stretch his vocal chords to the limit, and the result is spine-tingling in such an intimate setting. ‘2s and 3s’ – a dense, fleshy affair on record – proves just as devastating without accompaniment, and we’re left with the impression that The Saboteurs/Red Empire Orchestra, or whatever they’re likely to be called next time around, aren’t greatly missed.

The one downside to tonight’s show is that Micah’s having to work to a strict curfew: the powers that be want us all out of here by 10:30pm, and with two support acts on the bill, that means he’s left with only an hour to himself. He mentions this time limit soon after arriving onstage – he clearly had been hoping to play for longer – and consequently parts of his set feel slightly rushed. Perhaps this helps to explain why tonight’s gig overall feels like a good display, rather than a great one – to paraphrase another Dubliner in a different forum. In keeping with our earlier expectations, Hinson’s lived-in songs and nervy onstage intensity do certainly make for an enjoyable evening; but beyond that? Perhaps he needs to first of all graduate from being a (very) good songwriter and become a truly great one before we can hope for a similar game-raise on stage.