Ryan is in chatty form, telling stories and random things that are flying through that complicated skull. His guitars are giving him lip though, needing constant tuning and fixing. "I’d swap this for a f**king kazoo at this point" he jokes.

Mixing up the old with the new he has us all in the palm of his hand - reworked versions of ‘Fire Cracker’, ‘New York’ and the ‘Rescue Blues’ all go down a treat - equally some new tunes are lapped up, in particular ,‘Dirty Rain’, showing that, at the age of 37 he’s re-found his writing form. Bouncing from guitar to piano it feels like you’re hearing the songs the way the were written, stripped back and no frills, just the singer with the song and both are exceptional. 

He whispers a random ode to his cat which has the place in stitches, purring ‘Mr Cat‘...I guess you had to be there. Finishing up with crowd favorite ‘Come Pick Me Up’ to the delight of the fans that have been with him through thick and thin. Predictably we’re on our feet shouting for more and he comes back for an encore. With a many in the audience roaring requests, in his dry wit he says- ‘I drank too much coffee through my 20’s and wrote too many songs, I’m going play a cover that I like and if this doesn’t sit with you guys, I’m perfectly fine with that, I’m well used to it.’ He leaves us with a cover of Ratt’s ‘Round and Round’. It’s the perfect end, he’s played for 2 hours, on his own and he’s got the order his songs deserve. 

Adam’s is back in top form. He’s chirpy, confident and off whatever he may have been on back in the day. It seems that he may have finally stopped fighting himself and embraced what he is, and for that, this audience is thankful. 

Eamon Murray