Irish Times writers review Morrissey's gig at the Olympia, The Spinto Band at Whelans and Rigoletto at the National Concert Hall
Morrissey, Olympia Theatre, Dublin
Up until three years ago, it was expected of Morrissey - former lead singer with Manchester band, The Smiths, one of the pivotal rock acts of the past 20 years - that he would retire gracefully into old age in Los Angeles; it seemed apposite that his next-door neighbour was Nancy Sinatra - a cult singer/performer with fading good looks and a past that was framed in fame, fortune and differing shades of dark and light.
In 2004, when Morrissey released You Are the Quarry, his first album in seven years, it was expected that it might be the last gasp of a one-time great, a swansong with a croaky voice. Instead, that album - as well as his latest, Ringleader of the Tormenters - has thrust him even further into the limelight, taking him out of semi-retirement and into the kind of audience adulation that hasn't been seen since the glory days of his former band.
He's bit beefier than he used to be, but the voice and the songs are as lean as ever; he starts with a double whammy of First of the Gang to Die (the first of several from You Are the Quarry) and Still Ill (the first of several Smiths songs). He continues in the same vein, alternating solo tracks (including You Have Killed Me, Life Is a Pigsty, Irish Blood, English Heart) with Smiths classics (Girlfriend in a Coma, How Soon is Now?). Occasionally, he throws in a surprising if not wholly convincing cover version (Magazine's A Song from Under the Floorboards, a tune that connects with his punk rock roots as well as his native city). Overall, the mood is celebratory, the music punchy, driven home with a winning mixture of brashness, wit, a wink and a nod.
Morrissey, it seems safe to say, has valiantly returned from self-imposed exile to reclaim his position as one of our best pop/rock stars. An unlikely figure, perhaps, with his love handles, his greying hair, and his profusion of perspiration (the latter causing almost Cher-like changes of shirts and trousers - nothing too fancy for Moz), but one that continues to amuse, inspire and excite in equal measure. Still brill. Tony Clayton-Lea
Rigoletto, National Concert Hall, Dublin
The title role in Verdi's Rigoletto calls for a singing actor whose range of emotions must embrace cynicism, terror, anger and, above all, tenderness. Vladimir Dragos, the Moldovan baritone who sang it in this Opera International production, was better at the first three. He raged impressively and maintained a tireless outpouring of resonant tone in all registers, but the only dynamics he essayed were loud and louder. He occasionally altered the notes and was inclined to sacrifice line to declamation.
The Ukrainian tenor Ruslan Zinevych was a boyishly handsome Duke of Mantua with an odd delivery that generally eschewed consonants and waxed and waned in matters of tone and volume. He was seductively mellifluous in the love duet with Gilda, but he ran into vocal difficulties in the final act.
As Gilda, the young Moldovan soprano Maria Tonina offered the best singing of the evening. Her voice is not large, but she displayed good musicality and phrased impeccably. She began a mite timidly, but thereafter maintained a steady flow of secure light-lyric tone. Her coloratura in "Caro nome" was negotiated adroitly and she produced a genuine long trill at the end of it.
The rest of the cast, apart from a strong male chorus, was no more than adequate. Sergei Zuenko's production, staged in cut-down scenery and colourful 16th-century costumes, was lucid if old-fashioned and involved lots of stand-and-deliver stances. In the palace scenes, the Duke's retinue included three house-harlots who romped nakedly around a seemingly uninterested group of courtiers. Yuriy Holota was a singer-friendly conductor who followed rather than directed his soloists and invited applause by pausing after set pieces. His speeds in ensemble were generally brisk, but his pacing of the third act storm music lacked tension. John Allen
The Spinto Band, Whelans, Dublin
It's no small beer that this year Bud Rising has had a rethink. Instead of piling headline groups into disproportionately small venues, the wit and booking power of the festival has been put behind an array of emerging bands and indie unknowns, geared towards switching us on to new music while conferring on Bud Rising the aura of your clued-in big brother.
If this means being introduced to the joyously eccentric The Spinto Band by a transnational brewery, you're happy to be under the influence. A Delaware powerpop six-pack, they play music that begins with the shimmy and shake of the 1960s, then they funnel it through the scatterbrained twitches of our random culture.
Watching them convulsing through the syrupy harmonies of Trust Vs Mistrust, bobbing their heads frantically like Ed Sullivan-era Beatles on a sugar buzz, it's not easy to tell which is more important to them: the music or the idiosyncrasies.
This is largely down to singer/guitarist Nick Krill and singer/bassist/guitarist Thomas Hughes, both inconceivably frenetic players who move as though suffering a series of back spasms, seizures and electric shocks, which, combined with Hughes's tendency to perform open mouthed, give them the bizarre appearance of a band of muppets.
It's redeeming, though, that Hughes's movements are out of synch with his playing, a reassuring coherence suggesting that in an age pullulating with myspace.com bands, eccentricity is simply a means of getting attention, while songs are the only way to hold it.
It's a shame then, that for all the band's indefatigability, the beautifully crafted Oh, Mandy or the astonishing, rhythmic handbrake-turns of Did I Tell You, the crowd is thin and getting noticeably thinner. The Spinto Band would have you believe that their Buddy Holly meets Talking Heads confection announces a new genre: Lollipop. In our restless search for new bands, they should take heed of Marilyn Monroe in Some Like It Hot, and watch out for the fuzzy end. Peter Crawley
