Some looked as if they were about to nod off. Some looked as if they were saying the rosary. It was the best-behaved audience in the country. Nobody moved. Nobody jumped up and down. What is it about jazz lovers?
They're very touchy about questions like that. What word best describes the audience who gathered at Dublin's Vicar Street earlier this week to hear Brad Mehldau on the piano? "Boring?!" offered Donald Helme, a presenter on Lyric FM and head of his own advertising company, in a threatening voice. "This is a very reverential concert," he explained patiently through almost gritted teeth.
"Just let it happen, don't try and understand it," said jazz singer Honor Heffernan. "I love him because he's so free, he just goes . . . he's very different." "He's making it up as he goes along," singer Mary Coughlan said in admiration of the 28-year-old American, who's been hailed as "a postbop piano phenomenon". "He's so into it. He's totally in love with the piano." "It's a bit like being back at school," said Ciaran Cuffe, Green Party Dublin city counsellor. "A slight cough is about all you could get away with." Mark O'Regan, the Cork-born actor who has starred in RTE's Upwardly Mobile - "I was the architect from hell" - was introduced to the pianist last year. "He was absolutely brilliant." His friend, painter Robert Arm- strong, from Gorey, Co Wexford, was there as well to pay homage to Mehldau.
"He's fantastic, he's already one of the greats," said Mark Doherty, actor and comedian, who grew up in Dublin listening to his father, jazz pianist Jim Doherty. A musician friend, David Mason, home on holidays from his New York base, nodded in agreement.
Mary New, a grandmother from Glasthule, Co Dublin, and a director of a travel agency, was there on her own, sporting a long blue dress. No, she didn't bring her cucumber sandwiches or vodka flask this time, she said - that was just for Bob Dylan's concert in Slane some years ago when she got soaked by the water hoses close to the stage. "I go to all the concerts on my own," said Mary. "Then I don't have to worry about how the other person is enjoying themselves."
There was a bus-load from Limerick at Vicar Street, a beautiful high-ceilinged venue which opened a year ago this weekend. Well, they didn't actually come in a bus, but they all hailed from Lyric FM which is based there. Station head Seamus Crimmins was there along with producer Evonne Cutliffe and presenter Tim Thurston. Pianist Noel Kelehan, a producer and conductor with RTE, was there with daughter Carol. Both beamed as they left the show, high on the night's magic.