Paddy Casey wonders why anyone would wish to pay good money to gaze at his rump for two hours.

"I'm aware that some people here can see my backside," chuckles the balladeer, referring to NCH's back-of-room seating. "Did it cost you extra?"

Casey is playing the spiritual home of classical music in Ireland and seems anxious to keep any whiff of pretension at bay.

Accompanied by a string octet in glittering ball-gowns, the singer is surely aware of the pitfalls that await rock musicians who seek to give their songs an orchestral gloss. Get it right and your repertoire can soar. Make a mess of things and it could all go a bit James Blunt.

He opens with several soft ballads that consist of just his brittle voice, tentative guitar and washes of string. Casey has a taste for unconventional covers but at the NCH he plays it straight, delivering a faithful rendering of Kate Bush's 'When The Rain Came Down'.

Though Casey tends to get tagged as simply another po-faced singer-songwriter, his music is often sly-witted and more experimental than it needs to be.

From the provocative coffee-table pop of 'Whatever Gets You Through' to the Motown-goes-campfire flutter of 'Addicted to Company', he tiptoes deftly around the hoariest cliches of confessional rock. In fact, he only really fumbles when seeking to imbue his songs with deeper 'meaning' -- such as on the paean to the dispossessed, 'Refugee'.

But it's a rare blip in a set that milks the NCH's grandeur to maximum effect.

- Ed Power / Irish Independent