Evan Dando at Dogs Bollix

By GRAHAM REID

Peculiar isn't it, how some people can mistake a concert for an after-match function in a rugby club.

So it was when a sizeable proportion of the audience to see former Lemonheads' frontman Evan Dando considered his gifts as a singer and songwriter were a long way behind his reputation as a former junkie and boozehound.

The latter made him a slacker hero to these oafs who talked and shouted at each other throughout the performance - yep, that means you, the moron in the Lansdowne T-shirt - and paid scant attention to Dando who, with just an acoustic guitar, delivered a commanding and often sensitive performance.

He, too, found the noise intrusive and after half a dozen songs quipped, "I remember the first time I had a drink, too." Some still didn't get it.

Pity, because Dando was on fine form and offered up a generous performance which touched highpoints of his Lemonheads career (My Drug Buddy, the gorgeous Ride With Me, It's a Shame About Ray).

It also saw him get in touch with his inner Gram Parsons, playing songs by Victoria and Lucinda Williams, throwing in an aside from Britney Spears ("I'm not a girl, not yet a woman") and ripping through our own Proud Scum's I Am A Rabbit, obviously a favourite because he played it here with the Lemonheads.

Dando has been a long time in the wilderness but, unlike Gram Parsons with whom he was often compared, he has survived his wild years.

His return is welcome because he not only writes moving (and sometimes hilariously self-deprecating) songs but also knows how to get inside the lyrics of others. And as the clock ticked well past midnight and he kept pulling out song after song, you realised what a scholar of the form he truly is.

Tuesday might not have been his best night - last night's sell-out was probably for fans who would pay attention - but the numerous distractions aside (he offered to take someone outside to sort out a disagreement) it was terrific to see him commanding a stage with just a guitar. Let's hope he comes again, and the troglodytes stay in their caves.