Not only that, but the crowd laps up everything he throws at them from his own catalogue tonight, from deep cuts like Rock and Roll Night Club to genuinely affecting communal versions of This Old Dog and My Old Man, the latter reinvented to bring subtle, jazzy piano to the fore. The question is whether he actually needs to do that anymore he started playing other people’s songs in the early days because he didn’t have enough of his own.

Now that model has been followed through to what he presumably feels is its logical conclusion, which means that we get about an hour of original DeMarco and then the best part of 45-minutes of daft, karaoke-style covers. It can probably be blamed on a combination of long-standing fans feeling disenchanted at his swift rise to large rooms, and newcomers being disappointed that they weren’t being provided with the DeMarco that his meme-worthy internet presence promised – the one that would think nothing of covering U2’s Beautiful Day in the nude with a drumstick hanging out of his arse.ĭeMarco himself seemed to be struggling with the transition too, but by the time he was out in support of 2015’s mini-album Another One, he’d struck a happy balance, bringing that release’s low-key heartbreak out in the form of heartfelt singalongs whilst also finding room to, say, throw in a cover of Enter Sandman that involved him moonwalking across the stage in a Michael Jackson mask during an extended instrumental jam. It’s nothing if not a spectacle.Īround four years ago there was, for a short time around the release of his breakthrough record Salad Days, a weird sort of lull at Mac DeMarco shows, particularly when it came to audience enthusiasm. The main support, meanwhile, comes from the highly divisive Orange County duo The Garden, who oscillate wildly between doomy hip-hop, vicious punk and what’s probably best described as a thoroughly dystopian take on synth-pop. The undercard is a peculiar affair, with the Canadian’s tourmate Jackie Cohen afforded a last-minute slot her lo-fi, genre-bending wonky pop complements the headliner neatly, as do the 70s stylings of local boy Aldous RH, who delivers a set so laid-back that it’s practically horizontal.

On paper, then, this is a carefully-curated celebratory show, with an extended line-up and late curfew, but in truth DeMarco has packed the place out on his own.

Background Noise by Peter DeMarco