The Gospel according to Lukeman
When planning a show to mark his 25 years as a solo artist, Jack Lukeman thought ‘go big or go home’. The 3Arena is as big as it gets – certainly at this time of year – and it’s where you can mark the milestone with the Kildare artist this Friday night. The soulful crooner will also be turning 50 in the new year and reflections on his life and career were also constituents of his latest album Echo On which was released in September. But its production and subsequent release was poignant for him.
‘In the face of Covid and the lockdown, we were all hit by the old existential crisis,’ he says.
‘Then, just as we were coming out of it, my musical partner Derek Cronin died suddenly after some kind of seizure. He was only 50. We were just getting some songs going when he died, so he didn’t feature on the album but he was there in spirit. I was working on the song Echo On the night that he died. I don’t really hold to any one belief system, but I believe it all goes around and if you don’t get it right in this life you might get it right in another one. I also think everything someone says in life echoes on after they die, whether we like it or not.’
Other songs reflect on mortality, but less in terms of the morbid inevitability of all our deaths and more in the life affirming sense that life is for living to its fullest potential. ‘Sundogs In The Moonshine is about reminiscing while we were locked down about great travel trips from years ago. The last song on the album If The Dead Could Speak To The Living is about… well everything you might think about passing away and those who have passed, it’s all in that one.’
He says of the song The Winterling: ‘It is about that personal feeling of grieving for someone you have inside that you will never be able to explain to someone else. That part of you that holds on to them,’ before adding brightly, ‘but there’s a lot of fun in there too!’
It doesn’t play like a sad album, just profound, and if tracks such as the Springsteenesque Sundogs In The Moonshine and Doors-ish
Shaman Lounge get an airing on Friday night, you shouldn’t take them as cues to hit the bar queue.
‘I’ve been thinking of Shaman Lounge as an opening song,’ he says. ‘It talks about asking people to get lost in the sound and, hopefully, they will put their devices away and live in the moment. But it is like holding back a river. After all these years of people using their phones at gigs, that’s never going to stop.’
Did he consider, as Bob Dylan recently did, banning phones from the show?
‘No, because I’ve said at other times, ‘come to the show, video it and put it out on the internet. It’s a way for people to discover things,’ he says.
‘It doesn’t bug me too much, but sometimes it feels like a very odd thing to do when someone is
performing in front of you.’
Some people still call Lukeman ‘Jack L’ – the name by which he was known when he first appeared in tandem with The Black Romantics in the mid 1990s. The stage name also nods to his origins as a singer who leaned into Jacques Brel for inspiration.
Cover versions of songs by the Belgian musical legend formed a large part of the sets he performed with The Black Romantics at venues such as the DA Club (or Dublin Arts Club), a small, smoky venue off Clarendon Street which is sadly gone but fondly remembered by all who were lucky enough to bear witness to Lukeman’s legendary performances there.
‘I think between health and safety and the way night life has changed in Dublin that you couldn’t have a club like that now,’ he says.
‘We started at midnight in this tiny, dark venue which was only lit by candles. People would have spent the whole evening in the pub and then at chucking-out time came down to see us.
‘At that time you had shows that started at midnight in the Gaiety, the Olympia and Rí-Rá as well, but that hasn’t been the way things have happened for years.’
The 3Arena isn’t the DA Club and he’s called Lukeman now but it should be one L of a show!
‘If you don’t get it right in this life, you might get it right in another one’
Jack Lukeman plays the 3Arena on Friday.
Echo On is out now.