Bell X1 at the RDS? It would have seemed unthinkable a few years back, but 2005 was a good year for the group – one in which they took steps to ensure that they will be remembered as more than just Damien Rice’s old playmates.
They’re not the only ones trying to find their feet on the big stage tonight, though. Before their arrival, Swedish-Argentine tunesmith José Gonzalez tries his hand at warming up an impressively-sized sell-out crowd.
He succeeds admirably, providing a perfect appetiser for the meaty rock action ahead. Strumming and plucking his guitar with a frantic delicacy reminiscent of Nick Drake, Gonzalez’s sublime set peaks with a gorgeous reading of Massive Attack’s ‘Teardrop’.
Delicate, woozy and ever-so-slightly druggy; this is music that – tantalisingly, for us newcomers to Gonazlez – should sound even better on record.
Next up, the main event – and it doesn’t disappoint. It’s a ringing endorsement of Bell X1’s progress that they look at their ease in a venue as cavernous as this, and that their transformation from by-the-numbers indie plodders to compelling mood-rock miserablists now looks complete.
During the show’s first half, it’s tempting to think of them as an Irish Radiohead – more intent on seducing the audience with swirling melancholy than firing them up with mammoth rock choruses.
Recent tracks like ‘Reach Around’ and ‘Bigger Than Me’ are grippingly intense – full of industrial Joy Division drums and panicked guitar squeals.
The band develop a greater sense of abandon as the show goes on, even segueing smartly into Depeche Mode’s ‘Enjoy The Silence’ mid-song at one point.
They begin to flex their showmanship muscles, which reach their peak on a jubilant ‘Flame’ – recorded live on the night for future release, it’s the moment where the group start to sound like an Irish Franz Ferdinand.
Older material is largely ignored bar a well-received but ultimately forgettable ‘Slowset’.
Quite right too: Bell X1’s recent history is far more impressive and, most importantly, they should now be looking to the future with optimism.
Pic: Andrew Duffy