LOCAL SINGER:THE EUROVISION flickers away in Norway, becoming a little less relevant each time Aidan Coleman plunges his hands into his keyboard to pull out one more of his thousand songs.
The audience in Brady’s pub in Terenure applauds the man in the matching bandana and cravat. This is real music with its own form of show business. While our hopes of winning the fabled Eurovision Song Contest fizzle out, a large man hunched on a makeshift stage is about to deliver his signature song, co-musician Isabel sitting to the side.
Coleman purses his lips and makes the sound of rotary blades. Helicopters hover over the rapt crowd. He makes sounds of bombs and explosions and eases into the first chords of Billy Joel's Goodnight Saigon– creating a musical cinema for the Saturday crowd. You can feel the crowd's focus. Everyone is entranced, many join in singing, "And we will all go down together . . . " Some clapping can sound forced, but here hands vigorously reward a remarkable performance.
“Who won the Eurovision?” he asks. “The Germans? Hmmm. Niamh Kavanagh is great. I really think she’s great. But I don’t think much of the song. It’s a ballad. It lacks imagination really.” He adjusts the microphone stand and looks out at the audience.
“We can do better than ballads in this country. That’s my opinion anyway. That’s just what I think.”
It’s a shade after midnight. He flicks through his black folder of PVC-wrapped tunes. “Okay, let’s try this one. Frank Sinatra.” Two verses in, he stops and apologises for the keyboard having a mind of its own. Coleman cares. He’s an artist at ground level, just using his talent the way he can. The song recommences and he delivers the words with perfect diction and deep emotion, sparking joy in tables of cross-generational groupings.
A few weeks back, some cool guys in sharp suits got up from the audience and played a Dylan song to plug their upcoming gig in the Olympia – it all felt organic, musically generous. People come in from smoking outside, maybe there was some drizzle.
A punter feeling the effects of Saturday night props himself on a stool, his enthusiasm heightened by working too hard all week. Now it’s Elton John, now 1960s band The Casuals. “Maybe I should represent Ireland in the Eurovision next year,” jokes Coleman. And maybe he should.