The Academy, Dublin
If Noah & The Whale have ever been content with their career direction, it must have been fleeting. Three albums in three years have brought successive reinvention (twee folk, brooding indie pop and drive-time stadium rock), each sound seeking a wider fan base than the last.
By balancing introspection with swagger, tonight the London five-piece aims to please by condensing the highlights into a cohesive, well-orchestrated set: there are clap-alongs from the opener, Give A Little Love, sing-alongs from third number Blue Skies, and sustained rapture thereafter.
The latter is partly due to the band's take on dad rock, recycling tired sentiments ("Tonight's the kind of night where everything could change") and hackneyed all-Americanisms ("baby, she's a wild thing") for those young enough to be unfamiliar with the open-road romanticism of Tom Petty and Bruce Springsteen, whom frontman Charlie Fink discovered while writing the band's new album, Last Night On Earth.
Performed live, the record’s third-person narratives feel more substantial, swelling with showmanship until the crowd is swept along.
It's only the smaller details, as when Fink shimmies the microphone-stand between his skinny legs or emulates Elvis Costello, that their eagerness to be taken seriously feels less convincing. That's where the older material comes in, countering the pomp with heartfelt substance. Yet even Rocks and Daggers, Five Years Timeand a once-off performance of Maryhave been reclaimed from the whimsy of their 2008 debut, their now muscular arrangements chugging along as if to prove how much they have grown up.
But as the night ends with lead single L.I.F.E.G.O.E.S.O.N., the chorus takes off around the room and, for a moment, there's no hiding the chipper innocence. Behind all the fist-pumping, this is still the same band that made their name by rhyming "fun, fun, fun" with "sun, sun, sun".
