Dermot Kennedy Brought His Soul to Sin City

On Sunday, November 18th, Irish singer/songwriter Dermot Kennedy brought his Keep the Evenings Long tour to the relatively small 650-capacity club Vinyl at the Hard Rock Hotel for his Las Vegas debut.  The sold-out audience was treated to fourteen tracks covering Kennedy’s very young but prolific songwriting career.

Kennedy began by busking on the streets of Dublin. I first discovered him when I heard a recording of Glen Hansard performing at Vicar Street in Dublin in 2014.  During the encore, he invited Kennedy to perform a song (“After Rain”).  I was blown away by his voice and waited for his first tour of the United States, which brought him to a 400-capacity club, Subterranean, in Chicago in September 2017.  The week before Las Vegas, Kennedy sold out the Fillmore in San Francisco, which holds just over 1,300 fans.  His popularity has exploded well past YouTube covers in the past year to a degree that can only be accredited to his brilliant songwriting.

Musically, Kennedy often gets labeled as being “hip-hop” influenced. During the 2017 tour, he was tagging Drake’s “Furthest Thing” on to the end of “An Evening I Will Not Forget,” also available on the 2018 Mike Dean Presents: Dermot Kennedy EP.  He also brilliantly covered “Swim Good” by Frank Ocean on the same EP.  While he is clearly a fan of the genre and some of his songs do include samples reminiscent of it, his songs are mostly based around an acoustic guitar or piano.  Listening to two different versions of “Moments Passed” or “Glory” (studio vs. live/acoustic session) displays his incredible range as well the origins of his melodies.

In the live setting, Kennedy’s band has expanded from solo, to trio to now a quartet.  While his band, venues and setlist have grown, Kennedy’s music is ideally suited for clubs and theaters rather than larger venues.  His performance at Vinyl had the feeling of exclusivity to it—an artist captivating every member of the audience, all of whom who had spent hours feeling his voice through headphones and waiting a long time to experience it in person, and where thousands more would want to be, if only they knew.

The set began with two songs that have been staples of Kennedy’s live setlist, both from his 2017 EP, Doves & Ravens (“All My Friends” and “A Closeness”).  He then dug deeper into his catalog for “Shelter,” a track that had been cut from his 10-song setlist earlier in the year, followed by a yet-to-be-released song called “Lost” that most of us had only been fortunate enough to hear during a curbside busk that he performed on October 10th and streamed via cellphone on Instagram Live.  The show ended with Kennedy’s sing-along staple, “After Rain,” which ends with the audience sharing the room in the lyric “you won’t go lonely.”

The setlist covered almost everything in Kennedy’s arsenal that we have been fortunate enough to hear thus far.  For those who have seen him live multiple times, he has the feel of a young artist bursting with so much creativity that he cannot keep up with himself.  From August to November, his setlist grew by four songs, including his latest release, “Power Over Me,” and three songs that have yet to see a studio release in any format (“Lost,” “Malay” and “Dancing Under Red Skies”).

The only consequence of his constant songwriting appears to be that he has yet to release a full-length album.  In a recent interview with Forbes, Kennedy did indicate that he intends to put an album together in 2019. Until then, we have two EPs and several digital singles to enjoy while we await his 2019 debut album and hopefully another North American tour.

Setlist – November 18, 2018 – Las Vegas

All My Friends
A Closeness
Shelter
Lost
Young & Free
Boston
For Island Fires and Family
Untitled (working title: Malay)
Moments Passed
Power Over Me
Dancing Under Red Skies
An Evening I Will Not Forget
Glory
After Rain