Irish Times writers review Rancid at the Olympia, Nikolai Demidenko at the Waterfront Hall and Dar Williams at Whelans.
Rancid
Olympia Theatre, Dublin
By Tony Clayton-Lea
You would have thought that Ramones, Clash and Stiff Little Finger retreads might have had their day, but if you think that then you probably haven't seen or heard Rancid. From the Albany/Berkeley areas of California, and formed in 1991 around the childhood-friends nucleus of Tim Armstrong and Matt Freeman (and considerably bolstered in 1993 by the recruitment of Lars Frederiksen) it's clear that classic US/UK/NI punk rock has left its mark.
Yet rather than being something of an embarrassment in the haggard manner of the UK Subs (or, indeed, something of a nostalgia binge à la the once mighty Stiff Little Fingers) the members of Rancid have strengthened their case by grasping several nettles at the same time and holding on for dear life despite the stings. The band mix personal and social issues with low-slung punk rock guitars and a smidgen of ska and reggae, stylistic traits blueprinted by SLF and The Clash (whose former deceased member Joe Strummer's solo work is released on the Hellcat label, owned by Rancid's Armstrong).
There's even a swift nod to hip-hop in the set (via a head-tattooed roadie), which is as sorely out of place as it sounds.
Mostly, though, it's tried and tested songs that last no more than three minutes and which boast the best anthemic choruses this side of 1977/78 punk rock and Britpop. Songs such as Time Bomb, Roots Radicals, Ruby Soho and Fall Back Down bear testament to punk's enduring legacy of brevity, excitement and simplicity, and the downstairs sweaty Fight Club audience respond accordingly.
The men singing the songs on stage may seem trapped in some type of stylistic time warp (as does the audience, who don't look as if they're Damian Rice fans), but the mixture of defiance and abandon ensures that music transcends stereotype. It's good fun, too - committed, compassionate and remarkably concise.
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Nikolai Demidenko
NTL Studio, Waterfront Hall, Belfast
By Dermot Gault
Sonata No 4, with Nocturne in E flat - Field, Six variations on an original theme - Vorisek, 10 pieces from Romeo and Juliet - Prokofiev
Poor John Field - born in Dublin and apprenticed at the age of 11 to Clementi, who employed him as a piano demonstrator and general dogsbody (even getting him to do his laundry), he became an alcoholic and eventually died of cancer in Moscow, although not before becoming the inventor of the Nocturne.
His fourth and last piano sonata was written in St Petersburg, thereby earning a place in this "Paris and St Petersburg" themed series of free BBC Sunday afternoon recitals. Field's piano sonatas have only two movements each, but Demidenko made good the omission of a slow movement by inserting the popular Nocturne in E flat. It worked surprisingly well, a little harmonic twist at the start of the finale easing the transition from the E flat of the Nocturne to the B major of the sonata. Demidenko's playing was slightly overpedalled but pleasantly unaffected, and he added a brilliant makeweight in the form of a set of variations by Jan Václav Vorisek, a Bohemian contemporary of Schubert.
It was Prokofiev who, while waiting for the Kirov ballet to get round to producing his ballet Romeo and Juliet, arranged 10 of the numbers for piano solo. These are straightforward arrangements rather than virtuoso transcriptions, and one of Prokofiev's original piano works might have been preferable. But Demidenko characterised each movement strongly, and even the ubiquitous "Montagues and Capulets", which has suffered so much from casual overuse in films and television, was powerful and convincingly resonant.
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Dar Williams
Whelan's, Dublin
By Siobhán Long
Torn between a pastel-shaded, ankle-socked past and an overwrought adolescence, Dar Williams is a singer/songwriter whose identity ricochets between Doris Day-Colgate smiles and Tori Amos-inspired crises that will surely unhinge the universe.
Tonight what we got was lots of the former and glimpses of the latter, albeit bubble wrapped in Williams's indomitable on-stage presence.
Blissfully overwhelmed by the fine turnout, and unapologetically dumbstruck (albeit momentarily) by the lip-synching of a roomful of DW apostles, she valiantly took us by the hand through the urban landscape she has painted within her latest, and seventh long player, The Beauty of the Rain. It's a terrain not readily familiar to Williams, who has made her reputation on the back of greener-tinged vignettes of life in Massachusetts and points west, but lately the girl has decamped to New York City, and who can blame her for succumbing to its charms? Williams palette swept clean across the blues and greens of sofa-living in Closer To Me, compensating for her depressive lapse with the reminiscence-
laden The End of the Summer, and swing shifting into top gear for The Mercy of the Fallen.
Curiously, although backed by a fine trio of Ben Butler on guitars, Steve Holley on drums and percussion and sometime Suzanne Vega-bassist Mike Veseglia, Williams finally took flight on her own, freed of the shackles of the fuller band sound. That voice is more than comfortable hammocked by the full band, yet the subtlety of her lyrics and the finesse of her chord choices found their best expression when she took to the mic all alone.
Her witty asides were proof of an artist at home in her own skin, cosy enough with her audience to be able to poke fun at her own occasional folkie excesses (even admitting to having been on the receiving end of a few lessons in audience control from the almighty Joan Baez). Williams treads a path well beaten by everyone from Shawn Colvin to Tori Amos, yet somehow she manages to retain her own identity, only occasionally faltering when she tackles life's "bigger" (and almost invariably less interesting) questions. In the small pen pictures though, she shines.
