For someone so used to being in control in the recording studio, it's almost frightening to see bunker-room rat Daniel Lanois cut loose on stage. While he might not be the most choreographed of musicians - we're talking stock still as he plays a range of electric guitars and his first instrument of choice, the pedal steel guitar - Lanois rocks, but oh so gently, writes Tony Clayton-Lea.
Daniel Lanois, Olympia theatre, Dublin
Soft of voice, but quite damned noisy when he gets down to playing music, Lanois is joined on stage by esteemed drummer Brian Blade and bassist Daryl Johnson, each of whom reflects the type of studious but loose approach to playing.
Indeed, you could almost refer to the band as a collective masterclass in modern eclecticism; this wasn't any old gig where variations on a theme were trotted out with professional, if somewhat weary, aplomb. Rather, it was a two-hour show of spiky punk/new-wave, metallic funk, progressive rock (Yes? Affirmative . . .), jazz freneticism, folk/roots undertones and alternative Canadian country.
If you're thinking the show was all over the place, you'd be half right, but you'd be reprimanded for forgetting the mercurial talents of lanky Lanois.
Throughout the evening, he threw regular curve balls into the air, even managing to catch them with all the finesse and finish of a Harlem Globetrotter.
One of the more amazing things we heard was when he sat down at his pedal steel guitar, from which point he informed us that what he was about to play was filled with "solitude" but was also quite "transportational". Lanois might be a great man for naturally-designed hippy speak, but on hearing the sounds he made on this particular occasion the phraseology made perfect sense.
Was it all transportational? Well, Blade's drum solo certainly made me want to move to a different country, but apart from that, you could easily call this gig one of the most instructive to have been played in Ireland for ages. - Tony Clayton-Lea
Michael Buckley Quartet, J J Smyth's, Dublin
On a brief post-Cork tour, saxophonist Michael Buckley took his quartet to JJ Smyth's to launch his new CD, The Tourist, featuring the leader with Edward Simon (piano), Jeremy Brown (bass) and Stephen Keogh (drums). However, Simon, who had to leave to play in London, was replaced for the group's Dublin concert and the remainder of the tour by an excellent pianist, Greg Burk, who despite arriving from Boston within the previous 24 hours, fitted in to the quartet amazingly well.
Understandably, most of the programme played came from the new CD - Title Schmichael, Kungfu Lovin', Rosie's Place, South Facing, Urban-Net, all composed by Buckley - with the addition of Resilience and Old Souls, a couple of interesting originals by Burk.
What the material underlined was the quality of Buckley's writing and its ability to combine musical substance and character with plenty of meat for soloists. Rosie's Place and the gorgeous ballad, South Facing, epitomised his considerable gifts in this area. They were matched by the playing. Whether on tenor, soprano or flute, the leader was in top form, building his solos carefully and logically, with warmth and considerable awareness of the dynamics of each performance.
He was backed superbly by the others, particularly Stephen Keogh, whose own playing drove the group without dominating it.
Since it was live, the music was somewhat wilder and looser than that on the CD - Kungfu Lovin' had its uncertain moments and the mostly free Urban-Net seemed less focused than its CD version - but it was never less than totally engaging.
And it was typical of the unexpectedness associated with jazz that one of the new pieces, Burk's Old Souls, produced perhaps the best quartet performance of the night. Even faced with absorbing a fresh face into its ranks, this is a very impressive group.
Musically they were, as the jazz term has it, smokin' - unfortunately, so was much of the audience; personally, next year's ban can't come soon enough. - Ray Comiskey
John Feeley (guitar) Bank of Ireland Arts Centre, Dublin
John McLachlan - Four Short Pieces (first performance). Boydell - Fantasia (from Three Pieces). Benjamin Dwyer - Canción y Tango (first performance). John Buckley - Sonata No 1.
John Feeley's guitar recital in the Bank of Ireland Mostly Modern series was part of the series' open day of exhibitions and debates. His priority was to do justice to the music, to capture character and shape, and to ensure that they could be shared by his audience.
It was a lesson in quiet communication, for even in the midst of technical challenge, that priority remained clear, and Feeley's calm platform presence gave little hint of the skill involved.
The oldest work in an all-Irish programme was Brian Boydell's Fantasia, one of the Three Pieces for the 1974 Dublin Festival of Twentieth-Century Music. Boydell admitted at the time that this instrument is a challenge for any composer who is not a player.
That point was underlined by two other works on the programme, both receiving their first performances. The only composition written by a guitarist was Benjamin Dwyer's Canción y Tango.
It draws on Spanish and Latin-American popular idioms in a way which, while not exactly pastiche, leaves no doubt as to its stylistic roots or its instrumental finesse.
Likewise, John McLachlan's Four Short Pieces for Guitar were composed in 1988, but appeared now only through John Feeley's efforts to produce "a more guitar-friendly performing edition".
The most forthright exploration of technique came in John Buckley's Sonata No. 1 from 1989. In this composer's characteristic, rhetorical way, it explores every corner of the instrument's possibilities.
Given the concert's range of instrumental and compositional styles, it was all the more striking that Feeley's accomplished playing left little evidence of unidiomatic writing. Tone was impeccably controlled, and an unfailing rhythmic life made each work come alive. - Martin Adams
