EXPECTATIONS had been thigh that Kaddish, by Towering Inferno, was to be the highlight of this year's Galway Arts Festival. But, judging by the droves of people who walked out of the Big Top last night, throughout the 80 minute performance, it did not win the popular vote.

A multi media presentation devised by two English musicians, Andy Saunders and Richard Wolfson (Towering Inferno), it evokes the experience of European Jews and, by extension, all minorities of the 20th century.

Accompanied by a live performance of an intense blend of industrial rock, folk tunes, sampled beats, improvisational jazz and choral melodies, a series of images is projected on to three enormous screens, creating a vast collage of video and archival footage.

Some of the images a burning bush, refugees on the march across a desolate landscape, a deserted city - are highly resonant; others - such as the night rallies of the Third Reich, with the marchers' torches forming a giant swastika, or the seductive athleticism of the Hitler Youth have a cumulative power. Yet the reliance for impact on the sheer volume of the music and on the scale and speed of the images undermined the show's effectiveness.

The combination of sound and image worked best when it was less obvious and clamorous; a sequence showing two Hasidic Jews in traditional dress clasping hands and rotating had both dignity and power in its understatement. Moments of banality were rendered deeply poignant by the accompaniment of a traditional violin lament. At its worst, however, it all began to become reminiscent of a 1970s rock opera", where a theme of particular significance would be signposted by a jangle of electric guitar or a drum solo. Sometimes, an audience can work out its own response.