Perhaps you heard the screams from the Playhouse on Monday night? I’ve not heard anything so loud at a concert in a long time and it’s fair to say London-born singer/songwriter/performer Declan McKenna finished his tour in style at the Edinburgh International Festival.
He spoke of the capital being one of his favourite cities in the UK and pointed out that Scotland was the only country to give him a No.1 album but quickly delivered the caveat that chart positions don’t matter. I had hoped to review him at a previous gig at the Corn Exchange in 2021 but a family member testing positive for Covid put paid to that. McKenna is worth the wait, he opened with Sympathy from his recent third album What Happened To The Beach? which recalls the multi-coloured and psychedelic Magical Mystery Tour era Beatles.
His second album Zeros was delayed at various points due to the pandemic and probably didn’t get the attention it deserved. Tonight he plays the memorable single The Key To Life On Earth, there’s more than a hint of The Smiths’ euphoric melancholy and in particular Johnny Marr’s jingle jangle genius.
It’s hard to believe McKenna wrote Brazil at just 16 releasing what was his debut single back in 2015. It remains one of the strongest songs in his set full of hooks, melody and killer lines. The lazy brilliance of It’s An Act is a modern ballad of sorts, fans immediately raise their phones to film or just get lost in the moment.
Another 45 from Zeros, Be an Astronaut, is McKenna’s songwriting at its best and was one of the highlights of lock-down television when he performed it at the piano on Later With Jools Holland. The track sat comfortably between Bowie’s Hunky Dory and Elton John’s Goodbye Yellow Brick Road. While he doesn’t play it tonight we do get a debut live performance, his TikTok viral cover of Abba’s Slipping Through My Fingers. From the Swedish band’s final album The Visitors, its strange beauty is a beguiling favourite among songwriters and McKenna’s version is sublime and heartbreaking.
When you contrast that with Mystery Planet and British Bombs, the theatre erupts. McKenna, for the second time, makes his way into the audience amid scenes of wild emotion. He tells us, more than once, that this is the “end of an era”. If this is the final line of a chapter for McKenna then he’s finished well.
Who knows what a creative talent like this will dream up next?
