For such a relatively young guy, Jamie T is a musician who exudes confidence. The 24 year old Wimbledon songster has attitude to burn, allied with a naturally infectious enthusiasm. As you can imagine, such innate character attributes means that whipping an already-affectionate audience into a raucous frenzy is a task he can master with palpable ease.

Exhorting the packed house at the Academy to “throw more booze up here [onto the stage]” as it wasn’t “slippy enough” for his liking, the cheeky South Londoner and his trusty backing band The Pacemakers launched into a roughly hour-long set which met with a rapturous reception. And why not? After all, Dublin has had to wait for Jamie – he and his motley crew were scheduled to play here two or three months ago before he contracted laryngitis and was forced to cancel a number of tour dates – but if ever there was a gig that was worth waiting for, it was this one.

Starting off with The Man’s Machine and finishing with the obligatory three-song encore of Spider’s Web, Chaka Demus and Sticks N Stones, here was a musician who had the crowd in the palm of his hands – and knew it. It was gloriously messy – the energetic support responded with gusto to Jamie’s earlier encouragement to throw beer, and on more than one occasion the bard himself was struck by plastic glasses, cans and some other unidentiable objects. How did he react? With characteristic chirpiness; “Who threw that?” (Numerous hands go up at the back of the crowd) “Impressive throw, ten outta ten for that... but I’ll be fuckin’ your girlfriend later on mate!” (Gleeful cheers)

Without wanting to over-egg the praise pudding when it comes to those who had come to enjoy the musical womble’s live show, it would be remiss not to give it the attention it deserves. The atmosphere was simply phenomenal, belting out choruses and backing vocals when required without resorting to the tedious word-for-word singalong that only serves to detract from the enjoyment of the artist themselves. Hearing more than five hundred people yell “LIGHTWEIGHT PRICK” in unison was truly something to behold. Even the odd technical problems and feedback during Earth, Wind & Fire could not dampen this lot’s enthusiasm.
 

The setlist was, unsurprisingly, predominantly an excellent mixture of Panic Prevention and Kings & Queens, with one or two new songs which were of a similarly stratospheric quality. Man Not A Monster stood out, not least because, as Jamie put it, “I hope we don’t fuck this up, we’ve only played it once before...” The sweet rendition of Emily’s Heart, bombastic So Lonely Was The Ballad and, of course, the massively crowd-pleasing Sheila were fantastic, but it is difficult to specify particular highlights when the whole repertoire deserved adulation. The fact that songs of the level of Calm Down Dearest, Jilly Armeen and Brand New Bass Guitar did not feature sums up how impressive was the fare on show.

It is impossible to exaggerate how impressive Jamie T & The Pacemakers are in concert. Superb, sublime, sensational. Take whatever chance you get to see these lads live, ‘cause a thoroughly wicked night is guaranteed.

- Sebastian Clare

P.S. Huge apologies to Stevie T for not managing to get him on the guestlist. Sorry mate.