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JAMES VINCENT McMORROW
‘Even When It’s Too Much, It’s Enough’
@ The Princess Theatre, Brisbane,
7th June, 2025
(Live Review)

Review by Audrey Songvilay

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We walked into The Princess Theatre in Brisbane right on time to catch the beginning of the hush, and feel it settle as the lights dimmed gold. There he stood: James Vincent McMorrow. No band, no backdrop. Just a man, a guitar, and a voice ready to carry a heavy heart.

It’s been seven years since his last visit to Australia and fifteen since Early in the Morning was born, an album that sounded unearthed, like a sacred relic from a life lived quietly and deeply, then lost.

We’ll dive deeper into the sediment of yearning soon.

Last night, McMorrow revisited it not with fanfare, but with reverence. As if it, too, was something he once loved and is only just beginning to forgive. He opened with “If I Had a Boat,” and the air around us shifted. It was very quiet. The stage was lit in a warm, pine-gold glow. Not showy, not theatrical, just enough to see him, like how you might leave a lamp on in a room.

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Then came “Sparrow & The Wolf,” once a song about freedom, before we understood that freedom and loneliness often speak the same language. McMorrow sang it like someone revisiting a place he’d once fled, only to find it unchanged, and still quietly waiting. There was a tenderness in his delivery, but also a fatigue. “Before you learn that even the people you love can leave and still think of you kindly,” the lyric felt like a truth carried without bitterness. Just that quiet ache that comes with knowing some departures are done with love, and still, they ruin you.

And maybe that’s the secret of McMorrow’s voice. Not that it’s high or delicate, but that it breaks open the silence between notes. He joked, in that wry, self-effacing way Irish men do, about the burden of singing falsetto on live TV. He doesn’t like those high notes, he said. But he sings them anyway. There is tension between discomfort and duty, between exposure and retreat. It threads through every moment of his music.

By the time he reached “We Don’t Eat,” it felt as though heartbreak had settled into his hands, shaping every chord he played. McMorrow switched guitars between songs, each one carrying its own weight and tone. When he arrived at “Follow You Down to the Red Oak Tree,” the theatre fell into a kind of suspended stillness. Then came “Higher Love” – a cover, yes, but delivered with such aching tenderness that it became something else entirely. This is what McMorrow does best: he sings like he’s apologising for the very act of needing love.

Set two began with “We Are Ghosts” and then “Wicked Game,” another cinematic deep cut, and a reminder that so much of McMorrow’s success lives in the soundtracks of other people’s stories. “My career peaked with Twilight,” he laughed. “Then Game of Thrones. Everything else is just sh*t.”

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He slowed Lana Del Rey’s “West Coast” in a way that sounded like the party ended years ago, and no one told the heart. Because that’s the thing about yearning, isn’t it? It doesn’t age. It just softens at the edges. It becomes the story behind the story. The song you didn’t put on the album. The person you still dream about but never reach out to.

And then: “Cowboys of Los.” A personal favourite and a new release. He returned for the encore like he said he would. “Hurricane” followed a quiet and devastating story. And when “Cavaline” closed the night, it felt less like a finale and more like a lullaby for people learning how to leave gently.

We stepped out of the theatre last night, the city resumed around us. Cars honking, sirens calling and people talking.

McMorrow doesn’t do himself any favours by opening for himself. He gives it all away, early, and maybe too much.

But that’s the thing about someone who sings like he’s yearning: even when you think it’s too much, it still feels like grace.

It is enough.

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About JAMES VINCENT McMORROW

James Vincent McMorrow released his beloved debut album, Early In The Morning, 15 years ago to widespread acclaim. Spanning intimate and larger iconic venues across Australia, Europe, and North America, this tour offers fans a rare opportunity to experience Early In The Morning live from start to finish, along with special performances of new material and celebrated covers.

Honestly, when the idea of these shows was pitched to me I wasn’t really into it. I make music in order to push myself forward, the idea of looking backwards at something I made at the very beginning felt a bit odd.

Then late last year I was in the studio working on some new ideas and I found myself sitting playing songs off Early in the Morning, ones I hadn’t played in over 10 years. I sat in front of the mic and recorded the entire album from memory, just to see how it felt. I’d forgotten how much I loved that record. I had no clue what I was doing when I made it, it wasn’t profound, it was just someone hanging on for dear life and trying to will it into existence. The naivety of it all came flooding back to me, I didn’t realise how much I missed the naivety.

That album changed my life, when it came out I felt like a whole person for the first time, even when I was driving around in my car playing for 30 people every night, it felt like I was doing a thing that mattered. The bigger and bigger it got, the less I got to appreciate and enjoy it all. Maybe that’s inevitable, for me, I know I was struggling mentally with being in the public eye, it’s never been my favourite thing. One thing I have only realised in these last few months is just how much that album means to people. It’s not something I’ve ever thought about, I don’t sit around thinking about my records and what they mean. But people keep letting me know, feels like time has been incredibly kind to it.

A lot has changed for me, but the more I thought about it the more I realised that selfishly I wanted to have some new moments centred around the album, ones that I could enjoy it in the moment. There is no agenda, it’s just naivety and nostalgia, i want to stand on a stage with a guitar and sing the songs that changed my life.

So that’s what I’m going to do. The show will be split into 2 halves, the first half I will play all of Early in the Morning front to back. Then after an interval I’ll come back and play songs from across the other records, also some covers and new songs. It’s just gonna be me on stage, see you there.

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Press Release 18th March 2025 (below) HERE

JAMES VINCENT McMORROW
Early In The Morning
15th Anniversary Tour
Australian dates
confirmed for June

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AMNPLIFY – DB