Reviewed today are Tim Burgess at the The Limelight, Belfast andAn Unfinished Song at the NCH, Dublin
Tim Burgess
The Limelight, Belfast
This show could easily fail. It finds Tim Burgess playing at being a breakthrough artist. He's here, in front of just a few hundred with a raggle-taggle crew playing songs from his two-day-old solo album I Believe. It's a recipe for disaster. That it works at all is worthy of admiration. That it is a jubilant triumph is remarkable.
Onstage with The Charlatans, Burgess never looked entirely comfortable. He always seemed uneasy, frequently scratching an invisible itch, always glad of the security blanket provided by his other members and a catalogue of great pop tunes. I Believe is a country-rock album that sounds like Curtis Mayfield and wants to be Gram Parsons but falls short of both. The tour is either very brave or a grand folly.
But Belfast has always been kind to its post-Britpop heroes. Initially, the crowd gather loosely around the stage like hesitant cattle, unsure of whether they are witnesses to a rebirth or to last rites. Burgess senses their doubt. He makes veiled apologies for the songs. "I'm not sure what you'll think of this," he says repeatedly.
He need not worry. Live, his new songs breathe in a way they don't on his over-produced album. They sound like genuine, living songs full of hope and love and anger, always running into places you never expect.
The John Wesley Harding-era Dylan pastiche of Years Ago is simply brilliant. We All Need Love, with mariachi flourishes, is clumsy and saccharine on record; here, basking in genuine affection, it grows in confidence and utterly convinces. As Burgess finds his feet, the crowd follow. Halfway through, he's glad-handing the front-row and handing out drinks.
"It's refreshing to be doing something fresh, something new," he beams. Set closer All I Ever Do is met with almost hysterical fervour. It's like a revivalist meeting, masterly controlled by ex-bumbling indie kid Burgess. As Lester Bangs might have said, whoda thunk it?
Paul McNamee
An Unfinished Song
NCH, Dublin
On a night when the world's media was hell-bent on retelling the horror of September 11th, Dublin's Latin American Solidarity Centre reminded us that it's a date that holds equal significance for the people of Chile, where a democratically-
elected government was overthrown by a US-backed coup 30 years ago. For Chileans, September 11th offers a reminder of the torture and murder of one of their finest political singer/songwriters, Victor Jara. This concert set out to celebrate the man's music and the man's vision - no easy task for even the most seasoned of performers.
As often happens with charity gigs, there was an abundance of performers and goodwill. From Hada To Hada's tentative opener, when guitarist Kieran Duddy struggled with dodgy sound, through to Kila's jagged finale, a roomful of Jaraists hung on to every passionate word, and every zealous chord change, as if their attention might salve the hurt and horror of 30 years ago.
Jara's charisma was almost palpable in the room as performer after performer (Eric Fleming, Jayro Gonzales and Rachel Dempsey, Michael D. Higgins, Joan McDermott and others) shared a tincture of their admiration for the man whose name has become a byword for political will. Higgins placed the Chilean political story in context, reminding us of the role of the "éminence grise of terrorism", Henry Kissinger, while Joan McDermott, Paul Doyle and John McEvoy poignantly invoked the memory of James Connolly, in remembrance of those whose leadership continues to have repercussions today. Jayro Gonzalez, a Nicaraguan lawyer now resident in Ireland, sang with a muted passion that stilled the punters, but it was Katell Keineg's slow-burning fuse, igniting on her magnificent The Gulf Of Araby, that truly captured the essence of Jara.
In between, there were fine vignettes from Antonio O'Bresky, Cormac Breatnach and Martin Dunlea, Donal O'Kelly and Saoirse Fox among others, but the sheer volume of performances began to weigh heavily as they broke the three-hour barrier. Ultimately, it became a show-and-tell when it should have been a global celebration of the man, the music and the Chilean success story. Like a sean-nós song with too many verses, they'd have done well to trim it long before the Ó Snodaigh brothers and Kila grumpily took to the stage.
Siobhán Long
