IT should have been a momentous occasion - instead it was just a mildly experience. Glasgow band The Blue Nile, not famed for their exhaustive gigging schedule, were giving one of their rare live performances, and the faithful filed into Dublin's National Stadium in search of cold heaven.
The songs of Paul Buchanan are like cool, shimmering stalactites which pierce the heart, then melt the soul. They're note songs to be shared outside the privacy of the mind, but on Wednesday night you could feel a certain desolate solidarity rippling through the crowd.
It took a while for The Blue Nile to break the ice and for the onstage technology to swarm up; but, when it did everything began to flow. Buchanan is a charming, self effacing frontman, joking with the crowd in his soft Glasgow accent and parrying the many shouted requests with patience and good humour. The musicians have set themselves the difficult task of turning artificial electronic sounds into genuine emotive signals and they finally succeed with A Walk Across The Rooftops, Buchanan's lyrics striding across the cityscape while the keyboards and drums map out the terrain.
Love Come Down is, by contrast, more earthbound, Buchanan's acoustic guitar lighting a warm campfire in the snowbound recesses of the soul. The song is taken from the band's new album, Peace At Last, and it shows a less detached side to Buchanan's songwriting, a sense of embracing rather than a fearful shrugging off.
A standing ovation reassured the band that their star has not yet waned and Buchanan reciprocated with a redemptive resonant finale of Easter Parade. See you in another five years.
