CMATSt Anne\u2019s Park, Dublin\u2605\u2605\u2605\u2605\u2605<\/p>\n
A married couple are handing out miniature green flyers, just large enough to cover a phone torch, to the crowd at St Anne\u2019s Park.<\/p>\n
Their T-shirts, also green, confess that they\u2019re representing CMAT Babies<\/a>, an official fan group plotting a surprise that will arrive near the end of the night. After four failed attempts at securing tickets, this is their first time at a CMAT gig. \u201cIt feels like Pride,\u201d one of the couple says.<\/p>\n Just in front of them, Ciara Mary-Alice Thompson<\/a> pops up like a periscope at the end of a runway 20 metres from the stage and surveys the 20,000 or more people in front of her. \u201cWhat the fuck?\u201d she mouths.<\/p>\n Faux Meath GAA shirts, adorned with \u201cDunboyne Diana\u201d where a sponsor\u2019s name would usually be, are everywhere. There are too many cowboy hats to count. One person has brought a handful of promotional feather flags for Blanchardstown shopping centre. \u201cYup CMAT,\u201d someone shouts, and they will continue to shout this intermittently throughout the night.<\/p>\n She launches into Tree Six Foive, and the giddiness of the occasion becomes apparent. There is so much joy. Whenever the camera onstage pans outwards, it meets beams and roaring laughter, particularly in mid-song interludes when rests are complemented by freeze-frame acrobatic poses by the Very Sexy CMAT Band.<\/p>\n They take advantage of the mood with consecutive singsongs of The Jamie Oliver Petrol Station, I Don\u2019t Really Care for You and When a Good Man Cries. \u201cMy dream in this life is to see a CMAT show,\u201d CMAT says, acknowledging the improbability of ever achieving the goal. She bunches the band together in a Simpsons couch cluster for Running\/Planning as a compromise, so that she can at least view them all at once.<\/p>\n The golden rim of a giant euro coin hangs ominously above the stage like a portal to another dimension. It\u2019s a reference, of course, to Euro-Country<\/a>, CMAT\u2019s third album, which conquered all in front of it when it arrived in 2025. In some ways the evening is all about building up to that record\u2019s title track, a localised totem for all of the recession-era scar tissue that manifests itself in some of the worst parts of modern life.<\/p>\n Euro-Country tapped into an arrested development that had been lying unnoticed in the consciousness of the Irish millennial. Political despair, the housing crisis, US-Irish relations, suicide, self-doubt and loneliness are all tackled in five awesome minutes. Played in this sort of setting, it makes a lot of people feel 13 and 30 at the same time.<\/p>\n Speaking before Take a Sexy Picture of Me, her most streamed single, CMAT addresses the body-shaming that inspired the song and, as she posted online this week, has taken a huge personal toll on her in recent years. The latest bout of this abuse<\/a> came in the aftermath of her recent performance at BBC Radio 1\u2019s Big Weekend festival in Sunderland.<\/p>\n It\u2019s a poignant moment, as is a spine-tingling rendition of Sin\u00e9ad O\u2019Connor\u2019s Nothing Compares 2 U, which CMAT belts out while sitting on the runway. The profundity of the set isn\u2019t lost on anyone, but neither is the fun. As darkness descends we move towards I Wanna Be a Cowboy, Baby!, and the couple in front get excited.<\/p>\n CMAT imparts the Dunboyne, Co Meath, two-step, and St Anne\u2019s Park is swaying. The flyers emerge, pressed against a sea of torches to conjure 20,000 green lights. Maybe unintentionally, this seems like some brilliant ode to The Great Gatsby. It is deeply moving, and the CMAT Babies revel in her reaction.<\/p>\n She ends with Stay for Something, the latest in a long line of bops, and for the first time all evening rain starts to fall. Seemingly delighted with this development, CMAT wades into the crowd to lead a mosh pit, and is held aloft. You\u2019d find it difficult not to smile.<\/p>\n