Chuck Ragan / Nate Bergman // Brian Brody // Live Review // The Limelight II // Belfast
So this one has been in the Calendar for a while, ever since it was announced. Neither artist is overly familiar to me, and when that is the case, I do my best to avoid delving into their music as I love that ethereal first-time live experience, you only ever experience it once after all. So I tend to let the music envelop me, and I lose myself in the live performance and try not to be coloured by the recorded versions of their music.
I had to break this rule this week as I had the pleasure of interviewing tonight’s main support artist, Nate Bergman, who has been added to the Irish dates at the eleventh hour. Nate originally was pencilled in for the UK dates as shown on the posters, but when I interviewed Nate last Wednesday, he was already in Belfast, living up the high life with friends from Ireland and ready to get stuck into the Irish dates.
Check out the interview here: Nate Bergman
A third name is on tonight’s bill, Brian Brody, a gent who I’ll also pop the proverbial cherry with this evening. Chuck and Nate have brought decent weather with them, and I hope they have enjoyed a good few days in Ireland, as this may be our summer! So this evening, as I drive down, it is glorious, blue skies and quiet roads as I make my way into Belfast to enjoy a night of fine music with some of the best in the business.
I am in the door only a few minutes as Brian makes his way t the stage and bursts into song, with a tune about the infamous Hellfire Club in the Wicklow mountains down south, I know well of The Hellfire Club and as a kid I used to live in Dublin and we would talk of the folllore of The Hellfire Club. I don’t recall ever being brave enough to venture near enough. I was a child after all, and my older brothers and sisters may have hit the road with friends, but I don’t even wanna know!
Brian takes us through a glorious collection of passionate tracks from tales of his grandmother’s love of Whiskey in her tea and more. A true Irish troubadour, he belts out huge-sounding tunes that fill the room from edge to edge. It’s a lovely reminder of what a voice and an acoustic guitar can do, stripped-back magic, and the Belfast audience agrees. A short but sweet set allows Brian to ensure all eyes are on him till his set finishes, playing out with Last Man Standing Belfast erupts with applause. Their appetite was truly whetted for what was to come.
https://www.facebook.com/BrianBrodyDublin
So around 7:45 ish, thunderous heavy metal starts playing over the PA it went from soft singer-songwriter acoustic numbers to unleashing the gate of hell on us as the lights turn red and the solitary figure of Nate Bergman hits the stage. In the interview with Nate, he promised to make an arrival and that it may be a little jarring! He wasn’t joking, people look like their clutching their rosary’s and praying to the baby Jesus as Nate says “Hello Belfast, now if we’re gonna fall in love with each other you’re gonna need to move a little closer, there’s a huge fucking gap in that floor and that’s just not gonna do” He breaks into a beautiful melancholy number that has everyone engrossed from start to finish before he explains that’s not the sad one! That tonight’s set is like a rollercoaster, and he’s gonna take us to the top before thrusting us downward into depression! Now, Mate did warn me of his dark sense of humour, and he’s not wrong there; he has the locals chuckling away as he describes his upcoming set of hard-hitting, dark, emotive tracks that tug at your soul.
He has the Belfast audience in the palm of his hand within minutes, singing along providing backing vocals for songs they’ve never even heard, a truly engaging character he pulls on your heart strings with every word he sings, true emotion pouring from his veins as he grubs his very best to articulate the pain of life and the equal beauty within. A stunning set all too short and sweet but highly engrossing from start to finish, once again calling on the Belfast crowd to supply backing vocals instead of a gospel choir on “Back To Nashville” before wrapping up his set with an acoustic number on the floor in the middle of the audience bellowing out his heart and soul one final time before exiting the stage. I can hear the chatter of those around me, astounded by the performance and the unexpected nature of his set. A powerhouse vocalist and an outright performer, Nate Bergman is quality through and through. Hopefully we’ll have him back in our city soon enough, I heard Darcy’s have started a petition to get him back asap! If you know, you know!
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8:25 and out walks Chuck Ragan and Todd Beene and his pedal steel, and the two make quite a combo! Chucks raspy voice against the almost heavenly sound of the steel guitar is a match for sure, Chucks protest songs bellow out over the enthusiastic Limelight crowd and each one gets an explosion of approval as he wraps them up, he has a boss quality about him, an ethereal sound and vibe that you can’t but help love. Years of experience pouring out through those hard-written, hard-lived songs. He plays us songs from his vast catalogue and his latest offering ‘Love And Lore,’ and you feel every one, for many this will be more than a gig, when an artist of the calibre of Chuck Ragan rolls into town, it’s more of a religious experience. A cathartic one that allows you to envelop yourself in the outpouring of emotion that an artist such as Chuck stores up for the road. The coming together of a community who live every song, feel like they have penned each track with him and feel the release when played live.
I can see it in the faces of the gathered masses below, worshipping his every move, the thrash of his acoustic guitar, and the harmonies provided by Todd just fill the room like a backing choir. It truly is a beautiful thing. Every corner of the room has people singing along with every word, I have to say it feels good, feels as real as it gets in 2025. I watched a you tube video about the bastardisation of the modern musician, robbed of any future if earning a living, and the chaos that has been created with the you tube generation who never step out into the real world to be live performing musicians, they may be talented, exceptional in some cases but they don’t creat for you or me, but for likes and views, narcissistic personalities who couldn’t do what we are witnessing tonight by any means. What we have before us is a lifetime of experience laid out bare for all to see, warts and all. Is it perfect? No, do we get one fuck? No!
Give me this any day of the week, life in motion, the chaos of a touring artist and the reality of their graft right here right now in the flesh. Well worth your hard-earned money. I’m going to put the phone down now and stop scribbling and enjoy the rest of this magnificent set. If you’re in a town on the route of this sublime tour, take the opportunity to catch it; you can thank me later.
To celebrate the new album Love or Lore, Chuck Ragan has announced a headline UK tour for Spring 2025.
A full list of dates is below:
24 April 2025 Dolans, Limerick
25 April 2025 Whelan’s, Dublin
26 April 2025 The Limelight 2, Belfast
27 April 2025 District, Liverpool
28 April 2025 King Tut’s, Glasgow
29 April 2025 The Cluny, Newcastle
30 April 2025 Brudenell Social Club, Leeds
1 May 2025 The Bullingdon, Oxford
2 May 2025 The Joiners, Southampton
3 May 2025 The Garage, London
4 May 2025 Signature Brew Blackhorse Road, London
Love And Lore is released today, October 25, 2024 via Rise Records and can be streamed/purchased here: https://ChuckRagan.lnk.to/
https://www.chuckraganmusic.com
Photography: Mark McGrogan
