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Old 09-01-2006, 12:36 PM   #1
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Default vicar street reviews

the irish times had a favourable review one of the vicar street shows... not so favourable from the irish independent... i can't access the irish times one online, but here's the independent's:

Rice set is as inspiring as a double geography lecture Friday September 1st 2006
DAMIEN Rice is the perfect embodiment of that oft-spoken truism: being in the right place at the right time.

The Kildare man was just another jobbing singer-songwriter when a Letterman producer, chancing on a performance in New York, gave him the opportunity to play to millions.

Cue several major US television appearances later and Rice was a bona-fide star, shifting millions of copies of his debut album 'O' and winning the prestigious Shortlist Music Award.

Since 'O's' 2002 release, he has toured relentlessly. A follow-up album has failed to materialise, despite the presence of a glut of new songs.

This should have felt like a triumphant homecoming of sorts, but that was far from the case. Rice was listless and histrionic. When he wasn't strangulating his vocals or performing his material with a po-faced earnestness, he was roaring into a distortion microphone while his band whipped up a largely over-egged accompaniment.

Where once the musical chemistry between Rice and and Lisa Hannigan seemed sparkling, it looks like it's lost its lustre. Only on new song 'Nine Crimes', where the pair harmonised beautifully, did you get a sense of how well they used to work together.

This organ-driven number was easily the best of the newbies. The rest were half-baked or like re-hashes of old territory. Much of the two-hour set felt like sitting numbly through a double geography lecture. And that would have been more fun.

Rice has become a gloomy performer, incapable of striking up a rapport with the audience. Don't expect him to go cracking jokes - in fact, for swathes of the gig, he didn't even look like he was enjoying it.

Rice saved some face with 'The Blower's Daughter', his most crowd-pleasing song, before he promptly lost it again with 'I Remember', which featured copious use of the distortion microphone once more.

JOHN MEAGHER

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Old 09-01-2006, 02:05 PM   #2
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I saw both shows and have to say that I agree with this review. Damien showed a bit more interest the second night but neither of these shows were the "triumphant homecoming" I had hoped for.

Other than Lisa's song the 2nd night and the highlight of both shows, Damien only played one truly new tune (not sure of title but it's the one with the cowbells). Repeat, one new tune. Maybe I shouldn't have had expectations for more but it's been 2 years since he played his own gig in Ireland. Should I not have expected more?

I hope he's saving something for Electric Picnic but since PJ Harvey is playing at the same time I might miss him. I'm not really losing sleep about it.
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Old 09-01-2006, 02:58 PM   #3
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Irish Times Review

Davin O'Dwyer reviews Damien Rice at Dublin's Vicar Street.

Damien Rice

Vicar Street, Dublin

Davin O'Dwyer

"I remember it well," sings Lisa Hannigan at the beginning of this beguiling concert, and well she might - it has been three years since Rice's breakthrough album O.

If Rice or his band is bored with the material, however, they do a good job of hiding it - the years since the album have allowed the songs to mature in live performance. The seven performers are lined up like a school disco, with the boys (drummer Tom Osander, bassist Shane Fitzsimons and American guitarist Joel Shearer) on one side of the stage and the girls (cellist Vyvienne Long, violinist Cora Venus Lunny and Hannigan) on the other, with Rice in the middle.

Rice may have become a big star on the back of O, but he has made a habit of avoiding the spotlight. He brings that to its literal extreme in this performance, which is almost entirely backlit, green and orange and white glowing behind the band, with subtle blue downlighting accentuating the silhouettes. Movement on stage is so limited they appear to be marionettes, all rolling heads, swaying hair, square shoulders and spindly arms. The stagecraft is focused purely on the music - Rice doesn't even talk to the crowd until very late in the concert, despite someone in the crowd cheekily asking him to say hello.

New songs sit comfortably with the old favourites, but whatever one thinks of Rice and his lovelorn songs, it is worth going to a Rice gig just to hear Lisa Hannigan's irresistible voice. She could probably make an evening of Bucks Fizz covers into a moving musical experience. It is her duets with Rice that really soar, particularly Volcano and Older Chests. Blower's Daughter, meanwhile, might have a future of saccharine cover versions ahead of it, but tonight it is powerfully simple and elegant.

The spotlight finally gets some use, but typically it falls not on Rice but on Lunny for a violin solo. The crowd are reverential bordering on sedate, and they only become more spellbound as the lights go down completely for Eskimo and Cold Water, providing a suitably climactic finale for this mesmerising performance.

© The Irish Times
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