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I had a fifth-row seat for Paul Young at St. Luke’s last night. It was sold out, so it was worth getting in early for the “From No Parlez to The Secret Of Association” tour. The clue was in the billing: this was pitched as intimate conversation plus acoustic versions, not a greatest-hits run-through. Judging by the chatter and occasional heckling that drifted up from the rows behind me, plenty of the room hadn’t read that bit.

Forty years on from a debut album that went straight to number one and a follow-up that did the same, Paul’s voice has paid a toll for his long career, and you can hear it but the stories more than carried the evening. The one that stuck with me was him describing the Freddie Mercury tribute concert at Wembley in 1992, looking up at that crowd clapping in unison, and feeling like he got to be Freddie Mercury for five minutes. He’s also still moonlighting in his tex-mex outfit Los Pacaminos, which somehow makes complete sense once you’ve spent an evening in his company. Treat it like a night in someone’s front room rather than a concert and it’s a lovely time.

St. Luke’s was built in 1837 as a Church of Ireland parish church and was gutted by fire in 1887 before being rebuilt. It was deconsecrated in 2003 and reopened as a community arts and music venue, which is why a 19th-century Cork church now regularly hosts eighties pop stars and indie acts under its restored timber roof.

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