There have been many times in the last five years following CMAT’s career trajectory where it seems like Ciara Mary-Alice Thompson is peaking on that path, only for a rocket boost to blaze that trail and burn brighter, usually of her own making.
Being a breakout star at the BRIT awards, achieving significant play in an Irish radio landscape that doesn’t appear to like women, having a huge Glastonbury moment this summer, winning a Choice Music Prize, getting nominated for a Mercury and an Ivor Novello, becoming a Jools Holland regular fixture – all accolades and milestones that seemed very far away when Ciara was a budding wannabe songwriter calling herself a “self-styled global pop star” with her tongue firmly in cheek, while she ate an entire bucket of fried chicken on Instagram live stream in her granny’s house to promote her single of the same name.
But even in those lockdown times of live-streamed performances and limited capacities, it was clear that CMAT had something special going on – she was already a brilliant songwriter and an entertainer who didn’t take herself too serious despite creating seriously well-written songs.
Three albums in and the CMAT experience is a real show live – with her Sexy CMAT Band alongside her, her Friday night gig in the 3Arena to 13,000 plus people was a triumph of hard work, creativity and a dogged artistry that few out of this country of Ireland can match.
Taking some of her cues from the high country camp of Dolly Parton, the broad soft emotion of Gilbert O’Sullivan, and the pop magic of pioneering Irish girl group The Nolans, CMAT’s 3Arena show felt like a codifying confirmation of all of the crowning moments that have gone before – CMAT is no longer an emerging artist on the up bringing new audiences in – she’s still doing that but there is a core fanbase thousands deep at the Dublin gig many of whom are cowboy-hatted up, across different age groups and deeply aware of CMAT lore.
The release of Euro-Country in August confirmed it further – her best album of the three to date – distilling her own brand of pert and hearty countrified pop singalong anthems, writing with supreme confidence about her lack of it, self-examining with a poignancy, self-awareness, melancholia and pop culture.
And it’s clear in a live context, as it is from the album, that CMAT has put in a deep study of songwriting and performance craft from the greats of country, pop, soul and R&B over the last 60 years, with more than a pinch of pantomime too – whether it’s performing set opener ‘Janis Joplining’ from the seated balcony in the arena, to the between-song pretend flirting with band members to the bum-slapping physical comedy and facial gestures of her stage performance throughout.
CMAT is a magnetic presence – the ease at which she moves from crowd banter to heartfelt anecdote throughout the 16 songs performed is impressive – and the one that sticks in the memory the most is that just five years previously her biggest career goal was a gig in the Olympia Theatre, a milestone easily surpassed over two years ago.
The 3Arena show is aided by a huge lighting and stage setup, with a Eurocoin-Euro-Country-themed video screen used to its fullest effect on song two – the celebrity chef-referencing ‘The Jamie Oliver Petrol Station’, and then throughout a set that was filled with highlights – the sad yearning anthem of ‘California’ which CMAT refreshing says she loves singing it (in contrast to most artists who do not do self-praise these days), Euro-Country highlight ‘When a Good Man Cries’ with Nashville support act Fancy Hagood on co-vocals, the empowering ‘Take a Sexy Picture of Me’ and the duet with longstanding keyboard player Colm Conlan singing John Grant’s parts on ‘Where Are Your Kids Tonight?’.
Billy Byrne, the pigeon carrier man whose feature in a RTÉ documentary kicks off Euro-Country and inspired the album, is shown on screen before CMAT introduces him in the audience, and there’s a spotlight on the woman with the possibly-stolen Blanchardstown Shopping Centre flag (a place referenced on ‘The Jamie Oliver Petrol Station’) and CMAT’s original hit ‘I Wanna Be A Cowboy, Baby’ introduces vertigo to the arena with the entire room swaying to the Dunboyne two-step.
Then there’s ‘Euro-Country’, the song, an anthemic sad banger, a deeply sculpted reflection of Ireland ‘s recent past, that presents a personal reflection on living through Ireland’s recession – ghost estates, brown envelopes and suicide rates. It’s a cathartic song on record, but with a crowd of Irish people who are indelibly touched by the same shared experience.
And if proof were needed further, that CMAT really is a generational Irish pop star, then the set’s closing liftoff of ‘Stay For Something’ underlines the fact, further underscored by the mainstream television appearance of CMAT on one of the biggest Irish cultural television institutions – The Late Late Toy Show – just over an hour after she walked off stage, surprising a schoolgirls’ choir who sang the very same song on the show on Friday night.
CMAT is for the children, and everyone else -such is the undeniable reach of her artistry.
This 3Arena show was just the latest bright inflection point in CMAT’s star journey, as next summer big things happen outdoors in Dublin, Cork and Belfast along with a Coachella performance and a near-non-stop world tour. CMAT the pop star, is going to keep getting bigger, brighter and more of a global pop star.
Niall Byrne is the founder of the most-influential Irish music site Nialler9, where he has been writing about music since 2005. He is the co-host of the Nialler9 Podcast and has written for the Irish Times, Irish Independent, Sunday Times, Totally Dublin, Cara Magazine, Red Bull and more. Niall is a DJ, co-founder of Lumo Club, event curator, Indie Sleaze club promoter, and producer of gigs and monthly listening parties & events in Dublin.
