Paddy Casey, Mercury Lounge, NYC. 4/10/08.
A couple days ago I was watching MTV when they had a new promo for the 52 Artists in 52 Weeks campaign (by the way, the publicity for the campaign is pretty under the radar… I dont think the general public understands what’s going on. they need to brand it better). On the screen was this adorable Irish guy named Paddy Casey with artistic promos that reminded me a lot of 1999. Being a marketers dream, I was watching while on my laptop and immediately purchased his latest album. Then I just happened to check the local listings of shows in the area and found out that he was playing in NYC on Thursday. I made sure I could see him play.
[videos and review after the jump]
I’ve only listened to the album a couple times because Duke Spirit’s Neptune has been on constant rotation on my iPod…. but it’s really charming. Addicted to Company Pt. 1 reminds me a lot of David Grey minus the marbles.
Anyway, I got to the Mercury Lounge and the show was sold out with a line of people out front clutching their Irish passports hoping to get in. I found out from my buddy Bob that Paddy is the #2 singer in Ireland, just after Bono. So basically he’s kinda huge in Ireland and here’s he’s still relatively unknown, which means that for them to see Paddy at Mercury Lounge is basically the equivalent of seeing like, Brandon Flowers there or something.
Bob and I made our way to the front of the room so that I could see since I’m short as shit and we found ourselves standing next to these two girls who were having a fucking go at each other. Just bickering like annoying cats with this crazy schrilling voice. So, what did I do? I decided to turn my video camera on them so i could share with all you the ridiculous yelling match. Mind you, when Paddy got on stage, I very politely asked the girls to please be quiet because I didn’t want to hear them yelling at each other while the acoustic show was going on. This caused them to stop and glare at me. I told them that I was not trying to be mean, and had just asked in the nicest way possible … but they proceeded to make fun of me, and I could hear them cos they were right behind me. Here’s the video (which is gold when one girl calls the other a white supremacist):
Back to the show…
Paddy Casey made the intimate acoustic performance feel beyond special by interacting with the crowd and authentically connecting with them in ways that made everyone there feel special to be in his presence. His voice was flawless, really just like on the album, but he was extremely genuine. The set was peppered with slight technical difficulties with his guitar and the weird feedback your cellphone makes when it’s too close to a speaker — flaws that were needed to make you feel like you were watching something real and not pre-recorded and old hat. At no point during his set was I bored or wished I was somewhere else. To be honest, I’m surprised that MTV picked him for their 52 in 52 program since he’s way more of a VH1 “Artist You Outta Know.” I totally picture my Coldplay-loving brother to be hitting me up in a couple months asking me if I’ve heard of his new favorite artist.
Here’s Paddy performing his first single “Fear”:
“Whatever Gets You Through” (from his first album I think… sorry for the shaky beginning. i think i was scratching my head or something):
In this song he used the audience as his go-to rhythm section since he was sans drummer:
My favorite song of the night was “Don’t Need Anyone”:
As I was leaving the show, my new friend Bob insisted that I meet Mandi Perkins, and adorable new artist that’s coming out with an album soon… her songs were featured on the Hills a bunch of times and she’s totally beautiful enough to land a guest role on Gossip Girl ala the Pierces. Now all she needs is to date Fab and she’s set.
April 14th, 2008 at 12:18 pm
what’s weird is i saw this on mtv too. i had kind of forgotten about him- i guess they thought fear was the single again, b/c it was a single from his first album back in the day (i.e. 2000).