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David Gray Olympia, Dublin
"Welcome home," comes the cry from the audience, and Welshman David Gray smiles wryly back as he takes his seat by the piano to begin another head-bobbing pop-folk anthem. Gray is back in the land of his rebirth, and it's been a good week. He has just announced a second Dublin date at the Point in December, and his new album, Life in Slow Motion, is sitting pretty atop the Ireland and UK charts, knocking that other fella, James Blunt, off his perch.
Gray has been blamed for everyone from Damien Rice to James Blunt, but the sharp designer suit he's wearing tonight seems to say, "Don't lump me in with that lot". His new album, too, is an attempt to break away from the bedsit aesthetic which drove the success of his 1998 album, White Ladder (still the biggest-selling album in Irish recorded history, according to the bio). Life in Slow Motion is a high-end production job, and Gray's band (all suited up too, except drummer Clune, of course, who sports his signature Hawaiian shirt and white slacks) are armed and ready to reproduce the album's big sound on the Olympia stage.
So, what can the cosy crowd expect from tonight's performance? A selection of his better-known songs, perhaps, spiced up with a few of his greatest hits, and maybe a song or two from the new album, followed by a finale of his biggest hit (and biggest millstone), Babylon? Not quite. He does deliver the familiar, including Please Forgive Me, The Other Side, Sail Away and This Year's Love. These tunes get a good reaction, as you might guess. He also plays the new album in its entirety, and tracks such as Lately, Ain't No Love, Nos Da Cariad, Hospital Food and Disappearing World go down surprisingly well, suggesting that Gray may well have hit a personal best with this new record. Certainly the tunes are powerful and anthemic, fueled either by Gray's simple, forceful piano lines, insistent acoustic guitar strum or - more often than not - a big, shuddering climax. Gray puts his considerable lungpower behind every track, and the band rises and swells with each mood and motif.
The biggest surprise, however, is the omission of Babylon from the encore in favour of Silver Lining. Amazingly, this doesn't trigger a riot, and nobody cries "Judas" (or, indeed, "James Blunt"). Looks like Gray has put a few ghosts to rest. - Kevin Courtney
50 Cent Point Depot
You know you're going to a 50 Cent concert when the security guards have metal detectors. If there's one thing hip-hop doesn't need, it's yet another posturing, gun-loving bad-boy. Nonetheless, because of gangsta rap's incredible popularity, we have one. His name is 50 Cent and he wants to be the baddest of them all.
50 likes to rhyme about being a p.i.m.p. and getting shot, perhaps the latter a direct consequence of the former. Oh, didn't you know that 50 Cent got shot nine times? He does tend to mention it at every available opportunity. Strangely, an army of largely teenage Irish fans seem to relate to this and wanted to hear all about his life. And that's exactly what they got - the G-Unit show. 50 is from a rare breed of rapper who seldom bothers to rhyme about anything meaningful, preferring only rap about his eminently interesting self. Just like his mentor Eminem, 50 is more publicity driven than musically focused. He gives gangsta rap a bad name.
Mercifully, there was a silver lining to 50's onslaught of simple-minded lyrics matched with a bad flow. It came in the form of Mobb Deep and M.O.P. who, newly signed to 50's G-Unit label, supported the concert. But both groups appeared for what seemed like a nanosecond and could have easily played in a separate venue and packed it out.
At one point, 50 Cent strutted around the stage in a bullet-proof vest while glorifying further his ongoing feud with The Game. Young Buck smoked what he said was a joint of "sticky icky" on stage, which was by far the most remarkable thing he did all night. Yet, the thousands of young fans packed into the Point Depot loved every minute of it. Tickets cost €54.50 on Saturday and €60 on Sunday. Almost worth it for catching a glimpse of Mobb Deep and M.O.P. - Ali Bracken
Kerrigan, O'Brien, Roe, Smale, Caulfield, Kelly, Canzona Chamber Choir/Murphy John Field Room, NCH, Dublin
Works by Eibhlís Farrell, Charles Wuorinen, Raymond Warren, Berio, Monteverdi
The second of this year's Composers' Choice concerts offered the spotlight to Eibhlís Farrell. The Rostrevor-born composer presented seven of her own works, of which four were for voices. Whether for soloist or choir, these pieces - mostly settings of Latin texts, three by Hildegarde von Bingen - share a curious mix of philosophy, history and emotion. The 1999 O Star Illumined by the Sea mixes Hildegarde with medieval French chanson and the Byzantine liturgy, an esoteric cocktail that ended up chilly despite soprano Sylvia O'Brien's engaging performance.
There was a similar chill in Pulchra es, an NCH commission, in which the intriguing interplay and blending of bass clarinet (Paul Roe) and harp (Denise Kelly) outshone the actual text-setting itself.The other three Farrell works on the programme were short pieces for one or two instruments. Two of these were programmatic, with the 1992 Orpheus Sings casting violin (Alan Smale) and piano (Fergal Caulfield) as the pleading Orpheus and the forbidding boatman Charon respectively. The 2002 An Chruit Draíochta is an atmospheric evocation of the legend of the willow tree which learns the chieftain's secret and then reveals it upon being cut down and given a voice as a harp. It's music with an improvisatory feel to it, something it shares with Earthloops, a gentle, wide-ranging exploration of the clarinet that received it première at this concert.
In general, there was an impression of modesty, not of means - for the music sounded well put together - but of ambition. There was little that seemed over-demanding and the performances were mostly persuasive. The exceptions were the choral works Caritas abundat and O Rubor sanguinis, which sounded like hard work in the Canzona Chamber Choir's strained performances under Blánaid Murphy.
A leavening of works by other composers included the most dramatic performance of the afternoon, mezzo-soprano Aylish Kerrigan's hugely animated and masterful account of the weird and wonderful Sequenza III for unaccompanied voice by the late Luciano Berio. - Michael Dungan
McGonnell, Leonard, Collins Draíocht Arts Centre, Blanchardstown
Milhaud - Suite for Violin, Clarinet and Piano Op 157b. Bartók - Contrasts. Kevin Volans - Double Take. Schumann - Three Romances Op 94. Stravinsky - Soldier's Tale Suite
This was the second in a seven-venue tour given under the banner of Music Network's Young Musicwide Award. The 2003 winner, clarinettist Carol McGonnell, is travelling with violinist Catherine Leonard and pianist Finghin Collins.
The neo-classical textures of Milhaud's Suite for Violin, Clarinet and Piano Op 157b had a suitable mix of brittle precision and that sleazy, cafe-style voluptuousness that French composers made their own. In Stravinsky's The Soldier's Tale Suite, the spiky style of the opening Soldier's March and the contrasts of the Three Dances typified a performance that was always apt.
However, the highlight of the trios was Bartók's Contrasts. Written for clarinettist Benny Goodman and the violinist Joseph Szigeti, it is a serious test of musical and technical mettle. On this occasion the outer movements made all the impact they should. In the middle movement the musicians captured the sinister ambiguities that run through this composer's night-music style.
Schumann's Romances Op 94 were not the only works in which I wondered if the piano should have been on short stick. Nevertheless, Carol McGonnell's playing was a feast of musical-poetic insights, and Finghin Collins was responsive to her every turn. One of the most impressive performances was of Kevin Volans's Double Take (2004), which is dedicated to Carol McGonnell. It includes a subtle piano part; but the emphasis ison the clarinet's discourse of register and dynamics. Two-stave notation reflects the composer's idea of "a duet for one player". This music gets so much out of so little! It was utterly engaging; and McGonnell's involvement epitomised a concert that, although it was sometimes too unremitting in its gusto, brimmed with the human and artistic pleasures of making music.
Tours to Clifden on Sept 20; Ennis, 22; Sligo, 23; Tralee, 25, Kilkenny, 27. Details: 01-6719429 or www.musicnetwork.ie - Martin Adams
Dave Couse and the Impossible/Pugwash The Spirit Store, Dundalk
A value-for-money double bill is all-too-rare these days, so when you have Ireland's most acerbic songwriter (Dave Couse) twinned with its best exponent of power pop (Pugwash) you'd be something of a village idiot to stay at home. Pugwash is something of a slimmed down affair tonight, with just main singer and songwriter Thomas Walsh strumming guitar, playing songs from his two previous albums, Almond Tea and Almanac, and previewing tracks from his new record, Jollity.
Even without the propulsion and power surge of a band, Walsh's songs have an identity all their own. The template is still very much mid-late Beatles, but Walsh smartly lashes down the influences with a flurry of ropes and knots, his own voice cutting through the 'where-did-I-hear-that- melody-from?' tunes and forcefully tying up his material with a resonance many other bands would murder for.
You would think that a support act would be utilised as merely a foil for the nominal headliner, but Walsh proved otherwise with a deft display of very good songs and extremely funny between-song banter.
Dave Couse and The Impossible, then, had a tough act to follow, but Couse has had more experience in the limelight than Walsh, and has far more of a serrated edge to his music. Even now, 20 years after A House started and almost 10 years after they finished, Couse remains a dogged, determined, often dramatic figure.
His set contains selections from the past 20 years - A House favourites such as Kick Me Again, Jesus, Why Me?, Endless Art (a new version); solo items such as Celebrity, and cover versions such as John Cale's I Keep a Close Watch.
Watching Couse, centre-stage, arms aloft, ranting and railing against life's inequities, still fusing the personal with the emotional, one receives an uncommon glimpse of someone that has refused to trade artistic integrity for commercial acceptance. Couse's new album, from which he performs several tracks, is called The World Should Know - and it should, of course, except that the cynically fatalistic Couse probably couldn't give a damn if it does or not. - Tony Clayton-Lea
