The Script
3Arena, Dublin
★★★☆☆
Lightsabers, smoke and hysteric shrieks accompany Danny O’Donoghue as he makes his way to a small stage in the centre of a sold-out 3Arena.
Beneath a glitzy dark overcoat, The Script’s frontman is sporting a sparkling red shirt and thick, platform boots. If he wasn’t singing the opening lines to You Won’t Feel a Thing, you might expect him to introduce his first magic trick.
Based on monthly listeners on Spotify, The Script are the 222nd biggest act in the world, and the venue reflects that tag. Many would associate them most with their self-titled debut album that arrived all of 16 years ago, but the catalogue that followed has inspired a young, energetic audience for a band still in its pomp.
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Any praise or criticism of The Script often centres around their mass appeal. Flag-bearers of anthemic pop-rock, they draw natural comparisons with Coldplay and OneRepublic. Like the former, they have followed contemporary trends through the years, embracing dancier pop and hip hop.
2017′s Rain, arriving three tracks in, is evidence of that. Groovy, Latin-style acoustic guitar over open piano chords and a bouncing dance beat. Clean falsetto vocals for an earworm refrain. Confetti showers the crowd, who make for a blaring choir throughout.
Several songs later, darkness descends on the room for the night’s sharpest stab of nostalgia. O’Donoghue sits cross-legged at the tip of the stage and the opening notes to The Man Who Can’t Be Moved ring out. They elicit an assaulting roar, and every lyric that follows is chanted back.
There may be pockets of men who can’t be moved in the audience, gently and absentmindedly swaying next to their daughters, but at the heights of this set, they are comfortably shrouded in the noise, lofted arms and phone screens.
It can be difficult to make the 3Arena feel like a hometown gig, but in those moments The Script manage it. The songs, though, are fitted to the mass appeal – most tracks are removed from any location, hoping to resonate with any and all listeners. References to Ireland, when they arrive, can be forced.
When O’Donoghue speaks, his roots are clear, but songs like Paint the Town Green feel leprechaun Irish and moulded for American radio. That would not have been the intention, because one thing the band really are is earnest.
It has been an intensely difficult 18 months for The Script, who tragically lost guitarist and founding member Mark Sheehan at the age of 46 last April. O’Donoghue and drummer Glen Power ultimately decided to continue performing, now as a four-piece with Ben Weaver and long-time bassist Benjamin Sargent.
Halfway through the set, they perform If You Could See Me Now in memory of Sheehan. It is a song he and O’Donoghue penned on the shared experience of losing a parent, and it serves as a powerful dedication after the frontman thanks the crowd for “getting us through the worst part of our lives”.
Their seventh album, released in August, is further proof that The Script are coming through it. They close out the night with a barrage of hits – For the First Time, Breakeven and Hall of Fame among them. Practised hands in this setting, they leave their choir in full voice.
