Given that his old act, the Stone Roses, was shambolic in live performance, Ian Brown's turn in Cork on Monday night proved a largely unexpected triumph.A decade on from his emergence with Manchester's iconic indie-funksters, Brown retains an electrifying presence, loping loosely about the stage in that trademark simian shuffle, louchely slapping a tambourine, delivering his wilfully-obtuse lyrics in a heavy-lidded drawl.
Most of the material here was culled from his debut solo album, Unfinished Monkey Business, and in truth, there has been no great stylistic leap forwards from the old days. Edgy slivers of wah-wah guitar and a sinewy rumble of swooping basslines combine to provide the basic textural backdrop for his attitude-heavy rants, while the new three-piece band filters in some nimbly achieved Indian percussion and dub effects pinched from old-skool reggae principles.
Brown has never been one of the great vocalists, his voice is almost comically bereft of harmonic guile, but the delivery does have an extraordinary swagger to it and on tracks such as Ice Cold and the lovely Sunshine, the tuneless wonder proved that in rock 'n' roll terms, it ain't what you do, it's the way that you do it.
The single My Star was a predictable highlight. It's a skewy, idiosyncratic gem that shimmers off in unexpected directions and judging by the gurgling appreciation of the faithful here, it's quickly taken on anthemic status.
We were also treated to a brave cover of Michael Jackson's Thriller, Brown displaying a hitherto unsuspected sense of fun, and by the end, the capacity house was baying for more. It seems that there's life in the old monkey yet.
