Reviews

Irish Times writers review Gillian Welch at Vicar Street, Grandaddy at the Village and the Charlatans at Whelans.

Gillian Welch

Vicar St

Joe Breen

Following on from her stunning performance at the same venue a matter of months ago, American folk roots singer Gillian Welch returned on Saturday night to captivate another sell-out audience.

It was, however, a markedly different show. Last time she and her partner, co-writer, co-producer, backing singer and guitarist extraordinaire David Rawlings (how come he never gets to share the bill?) were suffering from jetlag, but despite it (or perhaps because of it) turned in a remarkable show of intensity and sensitivity, coloured by Rawlings's inspired acoustic guitar playing and the almost ghostly effect of their combined voices.

Saturday night's show was lighter by comparison. Perhaps taking their cue from the enthusiastic support act, the Old Crow Medicine Show, and their string band instrumentals and reworkings of classic folk songs (Rawlings, who produced their debut album, sat in with them for the show, thinly disguised in sunglasses!), the duo were almost giddy.

That's no easy thing when your material is as dark and intense as the songs of rural Americana that have made up their four albums. But Welch and Rawlings's intentions were clear from the start when they opened with I Want To Sing That Rock and Roll and Elvis Presley Blues: melancholic maybe, but suffused with a sense of possibility, not despair. This was Saturday night after all.

They divided their show into two segments, the second more focused than the first. There were a number of surprise covers - Dylan's joyous Tonight I'll Be Staying Here With You, J.J. Cale's After Midnight and an upbeat, twangified version of Springsteen's bleak classic Racing in the Streets.

All featured remarkable playing, not least by Rawlings who plays disaster-defying solos at the drop of a hat. Welch's singing was pure and true, particularly on the songs from Time (the Revelator) and Soul Journey which made up the bulk of the set. There was one new song towards the end which was not named, but which featured quite stunning singing from the pair. For the encore, the OCMS joined them onstage for an unlikely wild finale.

Grandaddy

The Village

Peter Crawley

Sting may have his rain forests, Geldof his third-world debt, and Bono that still-missing CD to save, but there are few bands more attuned to the hazards of skateboarding, the prison of progress, technology's affront to nature (or whatever passes for it in Modesto, California) and the ceaseless plight of lonely robots as beardy cyber-prog-rockers Grandaddy.

Matching their concerns to preposterously moving chord changes, wrought on blasting guitars and goofy synth trills, Grandaddy have recruited a sympathetically beardy following: an audience of nodding trucker caps.

But even they deserve better than this aimless introduction, chugging from instrumental B-side My Little Skateboarding Problem, through the weaker cuts of their last album, Sumday, before a ho-hum bonus track emerges with all the sterile charm of a dip in disinfectant.

"We're kind of pissed off to be here," admits diffident frontman and former pro-skater (sorry, sk8er) Jason Lytle from somewhere behind a stack of synthesizers. Interrupting work on their new album with this straggling last date of a lengthy tour, it isn't clear if he's joking. But when the splendour of The Crystal Lake arrives, Grandaddy finally raise their game.

Discovery Channel out-takes and sk8er videos flit across a screen as the plinky hooks and half-pipe utopias of A.M. 180, Hewlitt's Daughter and Summer Here Kids shred by. Beneath the elegiac cascades of So You'll Aim Towards The Sky or the gnarly grind of Now It's On hovers the poignancy of submission and the thrill of off-road escape.

A random-selecting iPod might have plotted a more considered setlist but Grandaddy encore with eloquence. He's Simple, He's Dumb, He's The Pilot attests that sometimes Grandaddy are preposterous for all the right reasons.

The Charlatans

Whelan's, Dublin

Peter Crawley

Outside Whelan's one ticketless but determined young woman offers a doorman something in exchange for admission. Let's just say it isn't money, and it isn't accepted.

Learning such a market value might instil an upsurge of respect for Madchester survivors The Charlatans, a band accustomed to bad luck. In the 15 years prior to these uncommonly intimate concerts, the group has lost original members to manic depression, a prison sentence and a fatal car-accident. Replacement keyboardist Tony Rogers was diagnosed with cancer, while an accountant swindled them out of £400,000. If Job had set up a rock band, he would have formed The Charlatans.

There's far more to admire here, though, than a band that cannot be harmed by conventional weapons.

Withstanding the vicious onslaught of Madchester then Brit-Pop has had more to do with riveting music and songcraft than their apparent indestructibility.

To prove the point, singer Tim Burgess whips his group through the rarely performed Toothache - a defiantly upbeat stomper that hits hard, then nestles back into a dark swirl of Hammond organ.

Dangling from his microphone stand, rubbing his eyes and muttering sweet nothings to the crowd, Burgess may sleepwalk through more recent output, but once the souped-up Love is the Key jackhammers into the stabbing funk of Weirdo, he can do no wrong. He's also experienced enough to savour the moment.

Amid the poignancy of Apples and Oranges or the compelling grime of You're So Pretty (We're so Pretty), Burgess shakes hands, pats backs and embraces his fellow bandmates, then retreats to a corner to watch them jam. Up close and personal, How High and Sprosten Green burn bright, Whelan's turns incandescent, and when we leave that glow spills out into the night.