Stephen Young And The Union, The Grand Social, Dublin
- Published in Live
is the new album from Stephen Young And The Union. It’s been three years in the making and the production was fraught but Young describes it as “light years better than Wilderness Machine, our debut”.
The man himself is just back from the USA where he played the new songs in Nashville and Austin. They’ve been described as “the best Americana band on this side of the Atlantic” and Young has the States in his sights with this album; “our sound is very much an American sound... the US seemed wise to line up as priority number one. I have a great publicist working for me there and we managed to get ourselves a nice couple of gigs in good music towns so we'll see how things go”.
Tonight is the album launch in the Grand Social and the venue’s faux- marquee setting is a welcome respite from the seemingly endless series of storms battering the city.
Stephen Young comes on and plays a solo song to ease us in. It’s a low key start and he looks the understated everyman in plain jeans and t- shirt. Polite applause turns to a rapturous reception when the rest of the band join him onstage. There’s no chit chat with these guys. They just tune up and get started.
They have an Elvis Costello looking bass player, some very welcome honky tonk piano for the bluesy numbers, and guitarist Shayne Byrne is an exemplum of the lost art of the guitar solo. Solos usually bore and annoy me but these are tastefully executed, tuneful, and sound like a natural part of the song.
Young gets really into the songs and when he closes his eyes and sings he appears slightly crazed. The eyes appear to roll back in his head and the eyelids flutter wildly. He comes across as a handsome ragged troubadour, but not someone you would want to piss off.
Previous album, Wilderness Machine, was pure blues rock and is complemented well by an Elvis Presley medley of ‘Blue Suede Shoes’ and ‘Hound Dog’ in a 12- bar blues style. But the Eagle Fort Rumble material shows a real progression and modernising of their sound.
There’s a ‘70s vibe off some of the new jams, not unlike Joe Perry’s Aerosmith work. And the bluesier aspects have given way to a more modern rock orientation. There's a real grunge overtone and the new songs are like Mother Love Bone, or maybe early Pearl Jam. Many of the tunes here wouldn’t sound out of place on the soundtrack of Cameron Crowe’s Singles. Targeting America with these tunes seems a wise move indeed.
In a rare moment of banter Young apologises for making us miss the Toy Show. For readers outside Ireland, ‘The Late Late Toy Show’ is the traditional start of the Christmas season and is literally a three hour toy show, broadcast live on national television.
Finishing the set with current single ‘Shuffle in the Quicksand’ and an uptempo rip through ‘All Along The Watchtower’, Young introduces the members of the band during the breakdown in the traditional fashion.The inclusion of two covers in a shortish set from a band with two albums out is a little puzzling but is a minor complaint amid the party atmosphere in The Grand Social. I get the feeling that the launch for the next album could be in a much bigger venue.