IT WAS the late, great Bill Graham who nailed this one. Commenting on one or other of U2's homecoming shows back in the day, the best music writer this country ever produced noted how U2's Irish gigs had become completely overshadowed by the offstage rattle & hum. No one bothered with the music when there was so much else at hand with which to damn the band.
There are many Irish acts who would concur with Graham's observations, particularly those who have enjoyed healthy record and ticket sales abroad. These musicians know all about that strange paradox inherent in how Irish audiences treat a homegrown act.
Anyone who dares to question an Irish band's musical bona-fides can expect a fairly hostile reaction from the stalls, including some rotten tomatoes and large chunks of broccoli. Yet foreign success by that act usually leads to a huge degree of begrudgery from those still stuck at home. You could get a great thesis out of such sozzled insecurity and self-loathing.
Someone who could probably contribute greatly to such an academic work is Damien Rice. He has, after all, been on the receiving end of this treatment again and again over the course of his career.
A couple of weeks ago, Rice announced the release date and track listing for his new album, 9. That's all the information which was available: a date, an album title and 10 song titles. But it was enough to unleash the hysterical hounds of online hell, who jumped in with boots and fists flying on the basis of such paltry information. At least when music writers give an act or an album a good kicking, we've taken the time to listen to the record first.
But it's highly unlikely that Rice has given this matter much thought; he has too many other things to do. Unlike the majority of the Irish singer-songwriter cabal who are too lazy to get their fat arses off barstools, too afraid of failure to have a go elsewhere, and wholly unable to write tunes which will get played on radio, Rice has done what everyone else just muttered into their pint glasses about doing.
He released O in Ireland in February 2002, in the UK in July 2002 and in the US in June 2003. Every step of the O story has been a masterclass in how to do things right. As O shows, hit albums are down to a plethora of happy coincidences and alignments. The combination of Rice's determined attention to detail, a brilliant manager and an album which people actually wanted to hear meant more than two million sales and many thousands happily served at live shows.
Since the release of O, Rice has hopefully had a whale of a time. While some are using the four- and-a-half year gap between albums as yet another stick with which to beat the Kildareman, Rice has toured, gigged and taken his music all around the world. I'm sure he has even hugged some trees along the way, but we've all done things we'd prefer not to talk about in the cold light of day.
When you look back now on the reviews which Rice's debut album received here and elsewhere, the overwhelming positivity is striking. Here was an album which reviewers universally warmed to. At various conferences and festivals, I talked to tough-skinned, hard-chaw American critics who were gushing in their praise. As the acclaim rose so did album sales, punters and pundits in unusually close harmony for once.
Comparing and contrasting the reviews this time out will provide some idle amusement. Of course, the presence or otherwise of purple prose depends on whether 9 is actually as good or as alluring as Rice's debut.
Naturally there will be some reviewers who will probably play the man rather than the ball; that will happen in Ireland especially. But given that less than 5 per cent of O's sales were Irish ones, the local picture is no longer one which should bother Rice too much.
