Finneas
3Olympia Theatre, Dublin
★★★★☆
Finneas O’Connell is one of the most influential songwriters and producers on the planet, but so dazzling is the star of his younger sister, Billie Eilish, that his own success tends to feel secondary.
The Venn diagram of Billie and Finneas fans is an enormous circle subsuming a sizeable but vastly smaller one. It is a dynamic that has always seemed to suit the pair. Creatively, they are equals on the Eilish project, and Finneas’s list of collaborators away from it – Justin Bieber, Camila Cabello and Kid Cudi among them – is testament to his footing in the industry. His 10 Grammys and two Academy Awards further substantiate that.
Still, on Sunday – the first night of a sold-out European tour – with the 3Olympia spotlight shining above his head, this is a different challenge. Perhaps the best compliment to O’Connell’s songwriting are the screams of approval that greet the opening licks of so many of his tracks. In an age and genre that hinge on short-burst, earworm melodies, he is undeniably a master.
Satisfying genre shifts are a staple of the Eilish sound – think gentle folk to Radiohead alt-rock on Happier Than Ever – and they feature heavily throughout here. Mopey piano intros on Starf*cker and Angel segue cleverly into soaring, heart-on-your-sleeve zeniths. Gone are the gothic, engrossing shadows that hang over his work with Eilish.
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Both siblings live with synaesthesia, a condition that causes “sensory crossovers” such as tasting colours or feeling sounds. In their cases it means experiencing music very colourfully. It makes sense, then, that the dark, experimental pop music he creates with his sister is contrasted by the brightness and melodrama here.
Visually, Finneas is somewhere between Kurt Cobain and Shaggy from Scooby-Doo. There is an all-American goofiness about him, and the more earnest moments of the night are laced with cringe. The Kids Are All Dying has a particularly jarring chorus: “How can you sing about love when the kids are all dying? How can you sing about drugs? Politicians are lying.”
Family Feud, though, which is dedicated to his sister and chronicles the protectiveness he feels towards her, is really poignant. She too is currently on tour, and his not being there is particularly unusual: he recently described the half-step away from Eilish’s show as very bittersweet.
Tonight should go some way to justifying it. For any flaws, this is a fun and high-quality gig, and the spotlight suits O’Connell. When he gets up from the piano he wields the guitar cockily – and on two occasions catches phones from the front row to sing passionately into their cameras. Nerves get the better of the owner of the second phone, whose throw falls narrowly short of the stage and has to be retrieved.
The night ends with the title track of Finneas’s second record, For Cryin’ Out Loud! – smooth, skilfully composed pop music, dotted with production quirks and built for his voice, which is particularly impressive when sliding into falsetto. If he can get more time off from working with his sister, he may make a career out of this.
