Train at King John’s Castle

Train are an interesting band, never one you hear much of, but a band that always seems to be around. They would never have albums that would top the charts, and would never sell out major headline gigs, but they always seem to have a song in the charts, and three more playing in every shopping centre and movie around the world.

Their early hit “Drops of Jupiter” then onto “Hey, Soul Sister” nearly a decade later, then “Drive By” another half decade later, three number one hits separated by fifteen years nearly, they’re a band that seem to always be there in that sweet spot between outright success and one-hit wonder status.

In a spectacular venue, one that would fit more of a heavy metal concert rather than trains pop-rock music, Train delivered a surprisingly energetic and powerful performance inside the courtyard of a centuries old medieval castle in Limerick.

Hit song after hit song played, with some lesser known (although I absolutely knew them) songs sprinkled throughout, and a surprising selection of covers and snippets of other songs such as full covers of “Over the Hills and far Away” by Led Zeppelin (which was sung half by the lead singer, and the other half by his 13 year old son, who also is an incredible singer), and “Under Pressure” by Queen and David Bowie, with snippets of “Hey Jude” and even Hozier’s “Too Sweet” thrown into a song.

An intensely lively and uplifting concert, with full sing-along potential throughout, Train somehow have released the world catchiest songs for the last 25 years.

An incredible show by a surprisingly talented band, with every member taking a small part of singing somewhere throughout the concert, showing that the lead singer is not the only one with an incredible voice, but that every member of that band could be a frontman in his own right.

Stage Setup: 6/10, A simple stage setup, a far cry from the stage setups they had over in America, but considering this was a significantly smaller venue than the play over there it’s permissible to me.

Band performance: 10/10, Not a band with any particularly hard songs to play, most of which I can play on guitar, and the rest I could pick up with a few minutes practice, the band delivered a perfect performance, with some solos and vocal runs throughout showing each members surprising level of talent.

Support: 7/10, Matt Hansen provided the support for us, a very talented singer, who does a great cover of “Iris” by The Goo Goo Dolls, one of the greatest songs of all time (in my objectively correct opinion), he did a serviceable job for the support slot.

Merchandise: 7/10, Pretty normal selection of merch, at pretty reasonable prices for concert merch, I picked up a tour t shirt, other designs of non-tour t shirts and hoodies were available too, bonus if you were one of the people in the crowd who caught one of the many free t shirts he threw out (I was not one of these people).

Crowd: 6:10, This crowd was very half and half for me, some of the nicest people I’ve ever met, including a man who works developing the video game Fortnite, and who probably has more money in his pocket than I’ll ever see in my life, but also some less nice people, including a man who caught onto a drumstick thrown into the crowd that a young woman had already caught and promptly yanked it off her to give to his mother (not all bad ending although, me and my girlfriend both caught a guitar pick thrown into the crowd and I gave the young woman who got her drumstick taken my pick)

Overall: 7/10, a very lively concert and a great show by a band that has no right being that talented, bonus points for the lead singer taking my phone, taking a selfie and throwing it back to me.