He barely knows what he’s doing: Oliver Anthony, at the O2 Shepherd’s Bush Empire, reviewed

What does a chubby, bearded American feller wearing a plaid shirt and singing about his dog and truck have in common with a chic, sonically adventurous Irish art-pop star? Both, last year, were inadvertently parachuted into the battlefields of the culture wars.

Oliver Anthony recorded a song called ‘Rich Men North of Richmond’ – Virginia, not Surrey – that was picked up by MAGA-types from an obscure country music YouTube channel, became a talking point in the Republican presidential primary debates and ended up entering the Billboard Hot 100 at No. 1 last August.

That same month, Roisin Murphy commented on a post on Facebook using her personal account, saying that puberty blockers were Big Pharma exploiting ‘little mixed-up kids’. Her comment was screenshotted and circulated online, resulting in thousands of people – many of whom had probably never heard of her until then – screaming at each other over whether she was a vicious transphobe or a feminist heroine. Questions followed over whether the comment would refresh her career – or wreck it.

Murphy issued an apology that satisfied no one, and has taken care not to revisit the subject. Anthony, after at first telling Republican leaders that his song was intended as a criticism of all politicians, not just Joe Biden, seems to have leaned into his role as the musical wing of idiot conspiracism. Between songs, the crowd at the Shepherd’s Bush Empire sang ‘Joe Biden’s a paedo’, lustily, to the tune of ‘Seven Nation Army’, while Anthony’s guitarist picked out the riff and told the audience they should help write his next single.

Pitching up at Ally Pally for Murphy’s gig, I half assumed there would be trans-rights activists and gender-critical feminists squaring up to each other outside.