Brian Keaneon MGMT at the Ambassador in Dublin and Martin Adamson Mozart's Don Giovanni at the National Concert Hall.
MGMT
Ambassador, Dublin
Taking to the stage with The Boys Are Back In Town blasting through the speakers, MGMT gave a patchy performance that blatantly exposed the band's weaknesses at the first of a sold- out two-night stand in Dublin.
To their credit, the five-piece are a lot tighter than they were earlier in the year, after a tour that has seen the Connecticut-via-Brooklyn synth-pop duo (Andrew VanWyngarden and Ben Goldwasser) work tirelessly in support of their critically divisive debut, Oracular Spectacular.
Early renditions of Weekend Wars and The Youth were notable only for allowing guitarist James Richardson, a hilarious mix of Slash meets a brunette Rick Wakeman, to show off his fret skills.
The kids certainly loved them. At various junctures VanWyngarden had money and bras flung at him by overzealous (and hopefully female) fans. However, the crowd only fully came to life with the peerless Time To Pretend, a song that's almost good enough to forgive everything that followed; almost being the operative word. In what could only be referred to as gig suicide the band soon launched into the 14-minute B-side Metanoia, an exhausting stream of prog-rock indulgence. The crowd quietened, conversations started (and ended), text messages were sent, pints drunk, toilet breaks taken and still the song went on.
After such a pointless lull, Electric Feel roused the audience again only for a messy Future Reflections to temper the crowd's ardour once more.
Obvious show-closer Kids was performed as a demented karaoke piece, with VanWyngarden and Goldwasser dancing around the stage to a noisy backing track of feedback and melody.
As if things couldn't get any stranger in a set that had more dips than a roller coaster, VanWyngarden bade farewell with the promise/threat, "I'm going to have sex with all of you", and urged everyone to use protection during intercourse.
This was an odd show from a band that isn't eccentric enough to be endearing and, more frustratingly, has yet to perfect the art of showmanship.
BRIAN KEANE
OSC/Montgomery
NCH, Dublin
Mozart — Don Giovanni
Concert performances of opera inevitably involve compromise. The Orchestra of St Cecilia's presentation of Mozart's Don Giovanni, under conductor Kenneth Montgomery, ameliorated some of the consequences by having the cast sit, raised at the back of the National Concert Hall's stage, and behind a small platform, on to which they would walk for an entrance.
The chorus and orchestra was in a tight oval before the platform, with many of the string players facing inwards, away from the audience, and with the conductor on the edge of the group. So the singers projected over the orchestra, as they would in the theatre.
However, the orchestra's projection was reduced, and sometimes that was sorely missed.
One of the musical benefits was a tightness of ensemble that produced zippy drive. However, there was also a less-welcome aspect that had nothing to do with the placing of the musicians.
The main limitation was that tightness was driven by the beat and fast tempos; and there was little of the flexibility or lyricism that can give individual numbers their power, and is essential for highlighting the contrasts between differing types of aria or ensemble. All that, added to the orchestra's occasionally untidiness with detail, produced a rather helter-skelter performance.
The singers were quite evenly matched. Roland Wood, as the eponymous Don, was more persuasive in the role's lyric aspects than in its dark notoriety. As Donna Anna, Linda Lee had plenty of presence, as did Elisabeth Scholl's Donna Elvira. Among the often well-done smaller roles, including Sylvia O'Brien as Zerlina, Eamonn Mulhall as Don Ottavio, and Brendan Collins as Masetto, the menacing, powerful tones of Vladimir Vassilev as the Commendatore were especially memorable.
The DIT Chamber Choir made a lively contribution to a performance that, through sheer gusto, roused the audience to enthusiastic applause.
MARTIN ADAMS
