The venue is the Waterfront Hall, Belfast – a gleaming modern testament to the new frontier, and frequently the most soulless of venues. Fortunately we had a front row vantage point, directly in front of the two chairs and three acoustic guitars lined up on stage.

A perfunctory introduction and Lyle Lovett and John Hiatt wander on to the stage. Hiatt has come to resemble Ronald Regan’s Spitting Image puppet, and Lovett, eyes half closed and grinning through tight lips, reminds me of a slightly elongated De Niro at his most method. There was a brief silence as the applause died down and we seemed suddenly to become extras in one of David Lynch’s less commercial offerings. Neither man is a born raconteur; and there began a strange, stilted and quite deliberately self conscious dialogue, that they kept up throughout the show. It seems at once an accurate reflection of their personalities and a gentle send up of the classic scripted ad lib double act.

“Did you sleep well?”.
“I did”.
“Good … you didn’t feel you missed anything?”
“Not really, no”.
“A song?”.
“OK”.

They have very different styles. Lyle Lovett and his material are the more naturally suited to a sit down acoustic show, although John Hiatt’s country blues guitar playing is certainly the more infectious. Alternating songs, they watch each other closely, clearly enjoying the experience. They rarely play or sing together.

“We are not a duo In fact, if you’re expecting a duo, you may have come to the wrong show”.

As the night progresses Hiatt begins to play little embellishments on Lovett’s songs; and once or twice sings harmony on a chorus. The songs from ‘Bring The Family’ and ‘Slow Turning’ bring Hiatt the most applause. It is Lovett’s second album with which the audience seems most familiar; and if there is a better song than ‘If I Had A Boat’ I have yet to hear it

The only proper duets of the evening are the traditional ‘Ain’t No More Cane’ and Hiatt’s ‘Thing Called Love’, and during the latter Hiatt embarks on an extended breakdown - and I mean a full 3 or 4 minutes - repeatedly asking an inscrutably smiling, and resolutely silent Lovett if he can shed any light as to why Bonnie Raitt omitted the middle eight from her hit version of the song.

These guys come from different backgrounds, play, sing and write in totally different styles. On paper it shouldn’t work. On stage it’s a delight.