September 27th, 2007
Cabaret
Montreal
Fingers n Glover

It’s easy to see why the media have made connections to Fionn Regan and Nick Drake; Regan couples a keen and cultivated sense of storytelling with vocal confidence and steadiness which favours biting subtlety over melodrama. However, and more a credit to his character, Regan brings a sincere generosity which is sadly absent both in the music industry and life elsewhere. We can’t review the actual show because we missed most of it, and having missed shows before, the regret of having arrived late for this particular evening made this the best show we had missed to this day. If it sounds confusing, worry not, for there was yet a Fionn Regan performance to review that night and it involved the intimate setting of a few barstools assembled in the corner of the venue where he played an impromptu show. We ran into him after his final encore to apologize for missing the show. Why apologize? If there’s one thing we’ve learned in this business as music journalists, it’s never apologize. Nobody does, at least sincerely, but we were no music journalists. We were, and remain, private investigators, and if getting our knees dirty meant getting closer to Billy Fong, then so be it. It wasn’t as though this fine Irishman would care, but the apology, sincere as it was, was less to him for having somehow wronged him. It was far more selfish than that. We were sorry for ourselves for having missed a show we had been looking ever so forward to and felt as though this needed to be articulated, if not to an empty pint glass, then at least to the object of our regret. But instead of ignoring us as many would indeed have done, Regan, in an act of chivalry not seen since the Middle Ages, offered to play the songs for us there on a stool in the back corner of the room. The five song set consisted of some of the finest tracks on his Mercury Prize nominated debut album, The End of History, highlighting a songwriting ability which rivals any of the songwriting greats of this era. Be Good or Be Gone was gloriously met with the surprise of fine harmonies by the Irish woman sitting in the shadows at the merch table. What separates Regan from even legends before him is a certain rejection of the pedantic elements and didacticism prevalent in the works of say, Johnny Cash or Bob Dylan. Regan’s work may sing of the working class, but he certainly does not need to tell you how to feel; responding to the music is inevitable, and to his credit, it can be that sinking, empty feeling which leaves you asking the big questions.

Yet all of this happened more than a month ago. What kind of journalist waits a month to post a review? Well after a performance like Regan’s and a gunshot would inflicted from Dandy’s baroque shotgun during a bad spell of Ayahusaca induced confusion on her hunt for Billy Fong, we had to sit back, tend to the infection, put on Regan’s record, and ask ourselves the big questions. Namely, why has Fong led us to people like Fionn Regan? What is it that Fong wants us to learn? We’ve been chasing this renegade musical genius since his resurfacing only to be lured to shows hot on his tail only to lose him. So what did we learn from Fionn? Three things…

Number one: Infections of the heart and body are best treated with time.

Lesson number two: You need be neither tall, dark, nor handsome to win the hearts of women. A book, a guitar and an Irish passport will do just fine.

Lesson number three: in a year marked by shows by Arcade Fire, Ben Harper, The Smashing Pumpkins, Interpol, and Bob Dylan, Fionn Regan’s impromptu show at the back of the Cabaret music hall in Montreal was among the best shows of the year. Even greater was the elfish Irishman’s telling the monster of a doorman to hold his horses until he finished playing for the small crowd.