Reviews

Irish Times writers review Michelle Shocked at the Ambassador, Opera Gala at the NCH and The Manic Street Preachers at the Point.

Michelle Shocked, The Ambassador, Dublin

Could this woman possibly be the reincarnation of Janis Joplin? The embodiment of all that Jimi Hendrix held dear? The thorn in the side of the Bush administration, that most unfashionable of people (and member of a dying breed), a conscientious objector? Michelle Shocked? The woman who gave us the languid Anchorage, the bluegrass aficionado who stopped us in our tracks long before the Coen Brothers' O Brother soundtrack with her own four-dimensional Arkansas Traveller? Yes, indeed, this is one and the same. And Tuesday night's performance was another one to add to our collected memories of Shocked's greatness.

Dubbed the Anti Bush War Tour, this was Michelle Shocked in full frontal assault mode, with, of course, more than a few stealth love bombs thrown in just so that she could rightfully reach the entire spectrum of the rainbow during her superb set.

With the bones of a three-hour show, she plays as though it were her first time in the pleasurable company of a receptive crowd. From the solo acoustic openers to her spiritualised duets with Hothouse Flowers's (and regular compadre) Fiachna Ó Braonáin, and her final knees-up with her full band, this was a night to nurture the inner child, the demonic rebel, the political animal and the uncertain lover.

Surprisingly there was a wealth of old material, along with whispers from her latest double CD, Deep Natural, but the overriding sense we got from the divine Ms Shocked was that blues, gospel, folk and political opposition are cut of the same cloth, woven of the same passions.

With Rich Armstrong on trumpet stilling the crowd with his unlikely rendition of Amazing Grace, and home boy Wayne Sheehy on drum duty, this was a night when music, rhythm and blues washed over us with a welcome abandon.

Reviewed by Siobhan Long

Opera Gala,  National Concert Hall

The skills required to sing Verdi's music effectively make a formidable list. Included are an extended vocal range, strong rhythmic and linear control, clean divisions at speed and, especially, the ability to phrase expansively. Happily, all three singers at the NCH on Friday came equipped with these qualities.

The Prague-based Romanian soprano Anda-Louise Bogza, on her fourth Irish visit, has developed into a lyric-spinto of considerable vocal presence. She soared through arias and duets from Masked Ball and Trovatore, as well as Puccini's Tosca and Rondine, with a stream of rich tone that remained opulent right to the top. And if the climaxes were given out in an all-or-nothing way, at least the "alls" were awesome ones and well worth hearing.

Spanish tenor Vincente Ombuena's light lyric voice was constricted in his opening aria from Gianni Schichi. But he quickly loosened up and thereafter delighted with a long-lined flow of honeyed tone in arias from Boccanegra and L'elisir d'amore as well as duets from Traviata and Pearl Fishers.

Jonathan Summers started and ended badly but he made up for it with nobly-phrased accounts of the big baritone arias from Macbeth and Masked Ball. The Australian's tone is drier than of yore, but he blended well in duets with each of his colleagues.

Brenda Hurley was her usual tower of strength at the piano. David Milne's Guinness Choir backed the soloists in some of the pieces and gave discreet accounts of opera choruses that lacked any sense of theatrical thrust.

Reviewed by John Allen

Manic Street Preachers Point, Dublin

If the Manics had a quid for every time they've been accused of selling out, they wouldn't even have to bother doing a Greatest Hits tour. But here they are at Dublin's Point Theatre, ripping into their best-known songs, and no-one's shouting "Judas". For all their posing and polemics, the Welsh trio is first and foremost a vibrant punk-pop group.

You can never erase the line between the Manics's early, explosive work with missing (and presumed dead) guitarist Richey Edwards, and the band's later, more measured stuff since his disappearance. But, more than 10 years after their début album, Generation Terrorists, you can see both sides more clearly now, even if it is only from the balcony at the Point. Motorcycle Emptiness remains achingly sublime, while La Tristessa Durera still packs an exquisite sting. On the other end of the career trajectory, recent single There By the Grace of God towers above most of the material on their last album, Know Your Enemy, while forthcoming single, Forever Delayed, signals a long-overdue return to edgy guitar rock. Bradfield is - as always - in fine voice, and many a throat will be sore from singing along to the high registers of Everything Must Go and You Love Us. Despair to Where remains more pointedly political than The Masses Against the Classes, but If you Tolerate this your Children will be Next is still a sharp, scarily relevant treatise on personal responsibility. So what that it was originally about the Spanish civil war - you could apply it to last May's general election. In the end, as the band close the show with A Design For Life, one thing is clear: we get the pop stars we deserve, and though the Manic Street Preachers may have let us down many times, they've never betrayed us.

Reviewed by Kevin Courtney