Live: Nathaniel Rateliff & The Night Sweats at The Olympia

Using a bow on a pedal steel. A two-headed pink telecaster with the sacred heart of Jesus on the scratch plate. Slide/feedback banjo, and what’s better than one banjo? That’s right, two banjos. A second vocalist, and I use the term vocalist there with extreme generosity, who looks and dances like Ian Curtis, if Curtis had decided to treat his depression by cooking up a load of meth in the bath. A baritone saxophonist - who immediately garnered my sympathy as I’ve suffered from a similar condition all my life - with a horn nearly bigger than he was. Cowboy hats, double basses, preaching and roaring. If any of these things appeal to you, then give Slim Cessna’s Auto Club a go. If things got any more Southern, I wouldn’t have been surprised to see a few penguins waddle out on stage. My co-pilot Colm Kelly was delighted, “They’re the Virgin Prunes of Country!”, and that about sums them up. Star of the evening, Mr Rateliff even came out to join the support band’s finale, for what is probably the worst display of male public dancing since that time Boyzone auditioned for Gay Byrne.

Nathaniel Rateliff & The Night Sweats are that kind of dream band, on paper, that come along every now and then, shooting for the sort of Americana, for want of a better term, that The Band were the masters of, and combining it with blasts of Southern soul. They are even, in a development beyond serendipity, signed to a resurgent Stax Records

Their last headline show in Dublin was over in the Academy, sponsored by Jameson. I was there, but expecting me to remember much about an event run by a distillery is a bit like sending a wolf to a little pigs convention and then wondering why there’s no bacon for breakfast.

There’s some sort of fabulous conflagration between blaxploitation and a Led Zep drone before the Sweats – a three piece horn section, guitar, bass drums, keyboards, and the head man himself – kick off on a very high note indeed with the Crescent City strut of ‘Shoe Boot’ - a risky gambit opening with what might be your best tune, but no matter, for every arse in the house is shaking.

What follows is a mix of the current album, Tearing At The Seams, and the eponymous band debut, Rateliff has released a few other records under his own name, from 2016 - two fine records as evidenced by songs like ‘Howling At Nothing’ and ‘Be There’, and they’re being played by a crack band of musicians. If I had one tiny niggle, and it is only a small thing, there’s a slight over reliance on the Motown-style combination of snare crack and down strummed rhythm guitar, but nobody else among the grinning throng appears to give a shit about my crap; they’re far too busy having a good time.

Things really start to cook with ‘Out On The Weekend’ which goes full Otis backed by the M.G.’s. The horn section, sporting a trumpet player who could have easily taken a job with Dr. Teeth and The Electric Mayhem back in the day, are jumping. The bass player with the ridiculously skinny legs looks, and plays, like a young Rick Danko, which is reason enough to buy a ticket, and his rumbling throb makes recent single ‘You Worry Me’ sound a lot stronger here than it does on record.

After an intro that combined Zeppelin’s ‘Your Time Is Gonna Come’ with, of all things, David Essex’s ‘Winter’s Tale’, their most obvious Band rewrite, ‘Wasting Time’ washes warmly over us. Yes, swap out the lyrics, and it is very close indeed to the ‘The Weight’, but that’s a good song, so what’s the problem?

There’s a solo acoustic ‘I’ll Be Waiting’, then the ‘Key To The Highway’ DNA sharing ‘Babe I Know’, before awesome Northern Soul belter ‘Intro’ turns the Olympia into The Wigan Casino. ‘I Need Never Get Old’, ‘Hey Mama’ and big hit ‘S.O.B’ keep the revival meeting going and there’s some on-stage dancing that explores that previously unmentioned intersection between James Brown and your Uncle Larry at a wedding. It’s great sport.

Before he finishes the encore with ‘Tearing At The Seams’, Rateliff treats us to a rousing version of Springsteen’s ‘Atlantic City’, and, in lesser hands, playing a Boss song could expose a band’s song writing shortcomings. The fact that it slots in so seamlessly is a tribute to tonight’s triumph. This is a proper band, kicking arse. Nice action.