Damien Dempsey says it best himself: he is not for everyone. "I'm like Marmite," he admits from the stage of the Abbey Theatre, smiling unrepentantly as he shrugs. "People either love me, or they hate me."
He’s always been a tough one to figure out. As both a music fan and a music journalist, there are things that I love about the Dublin musician (his undeniable passion, his heart-on-sleeve sincerity), and things that irk me (people’s tendency to fetishise his working class background). That’s not his own doing, of course, but as someone who grew up in a working class Blanchardstown estate not too dissimilar to Holywell Crescent - the Donaghmede road that Dempsey hails from - it would annoy me whenever I’d read or hear someone saying something along the lines of 'I love that he sings in his own accent.’ It’s the same way that many people continue to speak about Aslan and Christy Dignam, or even Imelda May; with a undeniably patronising undertone. "Damien Dempsey on the stage of the National Theatre, performing a show about his life? Sure, isn’t he only great? Who woulda thought it…" etc.
As Tales from the Holywell exhibits, there’s a lot more to Dempsey than meets the eye. Of course, I already knew this from personal experience. I interviewed him a good few years back, when he was on the promo circuit for his album Almighty Love. Given his physical stature, his background as a boxer and his ability to rouse a crowd from ‘lullaby’ to ‘sing-song’ in seconds flat, I was expecting an attitude and an ego more along the lines of a well-known Irish MMA fighter. Instead, I was met with a softly-spoken, almost shy musician with a healthy but humble level of self-belief.
That aforementioned heart-on-sleeve frankness of Dempsey’s is so at odds with the Irish mentality of taking the piss at every opportunity, that it can be off-putting. In some ways, he’s an American life coach trapped in a burly Irishman’s body. Still, Tales from the Holywell managed to strike the right balance of humour and personal stories, interwoven with songs from his career. These stories-and-music stage shows are becoming routine for musicians, thanks to Bruce Springsteen’s Broadway run and Bono’s recent Surrender solo outing (except to see ads for Jedward: Straight Outta Lucan in the run-up to this year’s panto season). But boy, does Dempsey know how to tell a story - like that time John Hurt (yes, that John Hurt) crawled across the floor of a posh London hotel bar on all fours to commend his songs, or when he’s recounting evocative stories of eating sugar sandwiches in his granny’s house. There are more than a few emotional moments, too - not least when he’s talking about his late dad Frank and his parents’ split, although his humorous manner brings levity to the sombre moments, too. His father’s talent as a ‘sandwich swearer’, as he ingeniously describes it, will mean that you’ll never be able to say Englebert Humperdinck (‘Englebert Humper-fuckin-dinck’) or Gilber O’Sullivan (‘Gilbert O’fuckin-Sullivan’) in the same way again. Add in spirited renditions of his songs Colony, Negative Vibes and a show-stopping Sing All Your Cares Away, and you’ve got a hell of a show.
Maybe that’s what caught me off-guard about Tales from the Holywell; although there’s an age difference between me and Damien Dempsey, there are characters and references from his life that I recognise from my own. But you could be from Hawaii, or Hong Kong, or Harare and you’d still get what he meant. And anyway, the idea of class is a load of nonsense, really. He knows this, too. At one point, he describes how he had once thought musicians and actors and creatives were middle-class. "But I don’t think of myself as middle-class," he quips. "I’m upper-class."
Tales from the Holywell was not what I was expecting. And to be completely honest, I’m still trying to figure Damien Dempsey out. But there’s one thing that you can’t fault him on: he is unapologetically, magnificently, gloriously true to himself. It’s all good.
Tales from the Holywell runs at the Abbey Theatre until February 18th - find out more here.
