Irish Times writers review converts by Damien Rice in Vicar Street and Michael O'Connor in Liberty Hall
Damien Rice
Vicar Street
While Damien Rice hammers out favourite tunes on a battered guitar, his vocal foil Lisa Hannigan decants red wine by candlelight. Were it not for a rapt audience in hour three of the Celbridge crooner's rambling performance, the gig could be a party in a cramped student flat.
In truth, Rice has much to celebrate. In the US, his lovelorn folk-pop has bagged rave notices and sell-out tours. As critics here put The Darkness on the top of their 2003 reviews and chuckle, in the US they write Damien Rice, and sigh. Here, Rice shrugs off the homecoming hero role with a loud clearing of his throat and a series of B-sides. Like a jealous lover intent on testing our commitment, Rice cakes on patience-defying monologues and frequent torrents of distortion, even blinding the auditorium with floodlights during a wonderfully woozy Cold Water. Cheers continue undiminished, however; you only hurt the ones you love.
The concert woos and wearies in equal measure, interleaving storm and stress with sap and slush. Having honed his skills busking, Rice still doles out verses of David Gray and Radiohead. You sympathise with the heckler who suggests he play some Damien Rice.
When he does, Cannonball, Amie, Delicate, Eskimo and The Blower's Daughter allow their gentle melodies to unfurl against sweeping accompaniment from Vyvienne Long's cello, surprise-guest David Arnold's electric piano and Hannigan's beguiling voice. Although they will hang on his every waffle, punters collectively sag during a 15-minute Portishead jam, and nothing can stem a slow trickle out the door in the meandering final stages. Die-hards linger on undaunted, however, slurring uncertain approvals as though they are emerging from anaesthetic, unwilling to admit that they really deserved better.
Peter Crawley
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Michael O'Connor
Liberty Hall, Dublin
Safe havens don't come much more hospitable than the Clé Club. Des Geraghty's guiding hand is everywhere, defined by its subtlety rather than by any dogged insistence on preserving the songs in aspic. Although primarily a singing club, The Clé's church is broad enough to welcome the odd musician, as long as they bring a knapsack of tunes. This week's final session of the year was a magnet for the great and the good of Dublin's traditional music fraternity. Kicking off the night's proceedings were a handful of singers whose grasp of the music was equalled by a keen ear for current affairs, and before the interval we were treated to startlingly topical meditations on Saddam Hussein and the perils of civil service relocation.
Michael O'Connor, flute player, music archivist and historian, and father to a quartet of superb musicians, set a fiery pace with an opening set of Donegal tunes borrowed from the playing of Kevin and Seamus Glackin. Accompanied by his sons Darach and Dónal on fiddle, daughter Aoife on concertina and fiddle, bouzouki-player Conor Lyons and long-time session compadre, Ciaran O'Reilly, he sidled through an eclectic mix of tunes, affording us an entertaining peep at their seed, breed and generation along the way. O'Connor's ambassadorial role in promoting Dublin's own tradition to a place alongside the better-known rural tradition was timely, and a keen reminder that not all the best tunes are played outside the Pale.
It was a night for unlikely odes to Condoleeza Rice, traditional Jewish riddles and a tribute to Joe Heaney, courtesy of Sally Corr's rendition of his version of Black Is The Colour. Further evidence that the traditional pulse is beating happily Liffeyside.
Siobhán Long
