You can’t manufacture magnetism.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
Well, you can, but you can’t sustain it.
So, a Monday night gig at an intimate club after a red-eye flight flight from Perth and journey up the road from Sydney is a pretty damned good test to find out if you are the real thing or not.
Ryan McMullan is kind of like an Irish boxer who knows he’s got to prove himself every time he steps into the ring.
He’s the first to tell you storytellers come by the dozens in Ireland (home: Portaferry, Northern Ireland), so he’s constantly competing for ears and attention in his homeland. Not a bad place to hone your skills, judging by the history of singers and songwriters to come from that part of the world.
McMullan, in Australia supporting The Coronas on a quick sortie, returned to Lizotte’s only eight months since playing there on a Bluesfest sideshow. The energy and the excitement was not quite like the first time, but the quality was there.
He opened on the organ with Ghosts and segued smoothly, without missing a note really, into Some Kind of Perfect. They are both love songs, his stock in trade, but not sappy or cute. Rather, complex and engaging, like an adult conversation.
And the killer point is, McMullan’s voice is a Rolls-Royce. It is powerful, a weapon. So using it with control is an art in itself.
Through 15 songs and gentle banter (“Marry me” yells a young blonde from the floor. “You’re not asking nicely,” he responds.), the 26-year-old lays down a stunning set of original songs, the ultimate combination of a storyteller and singer.
He delivers his current single, Bowie on the Radio, in the middle of the set. As cool a song as it is, it doesn’t dwarf the other works. Three songs later, he offers Belfast City, a new track that’s more visual, more stunning.
He plays The Story of Jenny and Johnny, A Winter’s Coat, You Don’t Dance, In the Back of My Mind and crowd favourite, Just Let It Go for Awhile, all songs that have been maturing in his pocket for a few years now. He switches from organ to acoustic guitar then electric guitar and back again, accompanied by his drummer Paul Hamilton, a bit of star in his own right.
Things get emotional on Oh Susannah, with a stunning a capello finish, and the night finishes after a single encore.
But the fans don’t leave. Almost everybody stops at the merch stand to buy, meet and chat with a star in the making.
Who could blame them.