Eric Clapton at Malahide Castle, KT Tunstall at the Olympia and the start of the Pipeworks festival of organ and choral music at Christ Church Cathedral in today's reviews.
Eric Clapton
Malahide Castle Dublin
IRISH AUDIENCES don't mind the rain too much - we're used to squelching around in big fields while the rain pelts down. We also don't mind too much if the fella on stage doesn't play all the hits, as long as he turns in a great performance and at least throws in a couple of his better-known songs every now and then. But when the PA system conks out during the climax of Layla, leaving 30,000 damp punters watching Eric Clapton belting out a silent guitar solo, well, that's just not cricket.
Still, there was some enjoyment to be had from Clapton's open-air concert in the grounds of Malahide Castle. From the moment he plugged in his guitar at 8pm, Clapton displayed the dazzling fretwork that keeps him at the top end of the world's greatest players. At 63, Clapton's still got his mojo working, and if he looks like he should be playing golf instead of playing guitar, he can still swing that instrument with virtuoso style.
Anyone hoping for a run-through of the hits (okay, admittedly, Clapton doesn't have that many) would have been disappointed. There was no show from I Shot the Sherriff, Forever Manstayed away, and the only Tears in Heavencame from the constantly drizzling rain. Fans of Derek and the Dominos-period Clapton, however, were well served by such early songs as Tell the Truth, Key to the Highway, Little Wingand Why Does Love Got to Be So Sad?(Wisely, Clapton left out Let it Rain). Clapton paid the obligatory dues to Robert Johnson in Travellin' Riverside Blues, paid tribute to the recently deceased Bo Diddley with Before You Accuse Me, and paid lip service to the fans with Wonderful Tonight.
Clapton's band included guitar sidekick Doyle Bramhall II and drummer Abe Laboriel jnr, who many would recognise from Paul McCartney's RDS gig a few years ago. Clapton himself, never much of a frontman even in his prime, stuck to his workingman's blues ethic, having minimal interaction with the audience - which might explain why it took him till the end of Laylato realise the PA was down. At least the rain had stopped too, but it made for a flat ending to a so-so show.
KEVIN COURTNEY
Pipeworks
Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin
VISIT THE YouTube website and search under "improvisation". Among the thousands of videos you shall find, those devoted to art music are dominated by organists, especially from France. So it was appropriate that the opening concerts of the Pipeworks festival of organ and choral music should showcase improvisation, and that they should include the first of several in the festival to mark the centenary of one of the most influential French composers of the 20th century, Olivier Messiaen (1908-92), who was perhaps that century's most important composer for the instrument.
The National Chamber Choir, under the baton of the French conductor Catherine Simonpietri, gave a technically assured and expressively intense performance of Messiaen's demanding Cinq Rechants(1948) for 12 solo voices. The songs were interspersed with improvisations from the virtuoso British organist, David Briggs. His Messiaen-esque textures, often based on the material of the songs, epitomised the flamboyance and control that can make French liturgical improvisation such a compelling experience.
In the later concert, David Briggs accompanied the 1923 silent film The Hunchback of Notre Dame. Sometimes he worked with material of the generally atmospheric kind; sometimes he played to his audience's knowledge and, perhaps, to their prejudices (hints of the American national anthem in the presence of royalty or royal power); and sometimes he combined these with nods to the cognoscenti Carillon de Westminsterby Vierne for the Hunchback as a bell-ringer - and Vierne was organist of Notre Dame).
The techniques are essentially contemporary with the film, even though some of the musical material was more recent. Their effectiveness, and Briggs's outstanding musicianship, reinforced the timeless brilliance of the film's narrative control and of Lon Chaney's superlative acting.
Pipeworks continues until June 29th. For details visit www.pipeworksfestival.com, or telephone 085 7868860
MARTIN ADAMS
KT Tunstall
The Olympia, Dublin
KT TUNSTALL knows how to pick her moments. "How are you this fine summer solstice?" she greets the jam-packed Olympia, on the day that - notionally, at least - the light lingers longest.
The Scottish musician's success has been a cheering combination of inspiration and accident. Her breakthrough famously came as a last-minute replacement guest on Jools Holland, and her follow through, the divine Eye To The TelescopeLP, became a global hit.
Where that record was a gutsy mix of blues figures, folk songs and soul-grabbing rhythms, last year's Drastic Fantasticwas a slicker affair, its radio-friendly agenda smoothing out her more winning rough edges. In concert, though, Tunstall and her fine band wisely chip off its varnish.
She does this with a warmly abrasive technique that isn't easy to emulate - namely, by being herself. Few performers have as easy and unaffected a stage presence as Tunstall, who tells status-deflating stories about supporting The Police the previous night ("Thank God I didn't call him Gordon"), responds good humouredly to every heckle and always tempers anything remotely cutesy with a salty smack. "I love all of you," she says between yelled marriage proposals (graciously declined) and premature birthday wishes (wittily accepted), "which makes me a slag". That disarming blend of sensitivity and power is right there in the music.
The blues-rock of Little Favoursand punchy drive of Miniature Disastersexploit a voice capable of soft purrs and bluesy growls, given further warm textures by her five-piece band and backing singers.
Even solo, Tunstall rarely appears exposed. When the band disappears, she picks spryly through a beguilingly bare new song, The Heart of Me, asking YouTube posters to label it a work in progress, then builds up the rhythm, backing vocals and forceful strums of Black Horse and The Cherry Treewith her loop pedal - a much copied but never bettered manoeuvre.
Tunstall's heart still resides in the jangle and clatter of rhythm, and the song builds into an invigorating full-band version, and Suddenly I Seelater resolves into a beat workshop of drums, handclaps, tambourines and dustbin lids. No stranger to good timing, Tunstall's enduring trick is to never miss a beat.
PETER CRAWLEY
