Coldplay hot stuff

REWIND 2002: Live gig highlights of the year include inspiring performances from Elvis Costello, Korn and best of all, Coldplay, writes Tony Clayton-Lea.

Gig-wise it was a moderately decent year, with about a performance a month that rated highly on the TCL-ometer. Highlights included two gigs featuring Elvis Costello - the first was in January, when he was part of a quartet of singer/songwriters performing at the Landmine concert at the Point; the second was nine months later in September, when a slightly rougher but relaxed Costello fought sound problems to deliver a largely fine set that uncovered several gems from an estimable back catalogue.

Sticking to the singer/songwriters, the likes of Aimee Mann, Eddie Reader, Richard Thompson (all July), Lucy Kaplansky (September) and Beth Orton (October) might have delivered what they know best - songs that cut directly to the chase emotionally - but when the best is better than a vast array of what's on offer, we shouldn't really complain. While there now seems to be more singer/songwriters than there ever was, it's gratifying to realise that quite a number of those floating around are Irish and quite good. Take a bow Gemma Hayes, Stewart Agnew, Paul O'Reilly, Goodtime John, Ger Wolfe and Thomas Walsh (Pugwash).

Perhaps the surprise of the year was how good rock music stood its ground while being rooted by tradition. One of the best gigs of the year was White Stripes (May) at Dublin Castle. Managing to invest the kind of noise that a normal size band might have difficulty in locating, Jack and Meg White fuse guitar rock with the blues. Unwittingly or not, they have created a situation where their younger fans can now begin to understand why older people might just like Bob Dylan, Robert Johnson and aspects of country music.

Interestingly, The Strokes played Dublin's Olympia about a month before White Stripes and turned in a Stooges/Velvet Underground-influenced performance that was both unengaging and uninspired, leading one to believe that perhaps hype isn't such a good marketing strategy after all.

Alt.country/nu-folk music raised its profile yet again in the shape of Jay Farrar (August), a former alt.country pioneer who - like so many of his colleagues before him - turned in what was probably the best gig of its kind in the year. We missed Jason Ringenberg (November, heard good reports, though), the Ryan Adams/Jesse Malin outings (November, ditto) and the bountiful Dolly Parton (November, cracking gig by all accounts), but we caught the virtually transcendent Hem (February), the somewhat overrated Damien Rice (March), the vastly underrated Josh Ritter (March), the wiry, quirky Billy Bob Thornton (April) and the eclectic and durable Gail Davies (July).

Rock and pop music in turn enthralled and dismayed. Brian Wilson and The Monkees (both March) might have seemed, on paper, a nostalgic return to the golden days of US pop, but each had its own special qualities. The former looked completely out of it, waving his hands over some of the best pop music ever, while the latter veterans (featuring just two of the original band, Davy Jones and Mickey Dolenz) veered between chicken-nugget cabaret and scintillating pop performance. Ditto Neil Diamond (July), who seems to always have a revival just around the corner but rarely makes his live performances count. Unlike erstwhile Jellyfish songwriter Jason Falkner (July), who gave such a winning display of power pop techniques, it was easy to forgive his sozzled onstage behaviour.

Another power pop practitioner, former Squeeze member Glenn Tilbrook (August) certainly knows how to write pop songs, but his performance of same at Whelans came to a sticky end. Six (August), meanwhile, played the Irish Popstars game for a while, their summer gigs a series of object lessons in how to combine cheesy grins with irritatingly catchy pop tunes.

None of the above, however, had the sense of danger of Iggy Pop (July), the sense of occasion of Korn (September), the sense of brain blitz of Queens Of The Stone Age, the sense of fun of Prince, the sense of triumph of Coldplay (all October) and the sense of play of Moby (November).

The man who, figuratively speaking, fathered The Strokes all those years ago (but really, who knows what could have taken place?), Iggy Pop took the Olympia by storm, berating Andrea Corr while pounding out a savage beat above the din of his awful band. Korn, meanwhile, are as much a testament to the nihilistic ramblings of self-destructive mood-swing sufferers as to savvy marketing strategists. That said, their gig at the RDS was an amazing show of power and control. As was Queens Of The Stone Age at the Ambassador, where music and stage lights coalesced into something awesome altogether.

Less spectacular but still pretty damned good was the return of the purple pixie-footed Prince, whose Point gig was a loquacious celebration of the funk. Take out the "k" in funk and you've got what Moby gave us at the same venue last month.

Best gig of the year, however, has to go to Coldplay, also at The Point. For a display of sheer exultation, this takes the honours - a show where band, music, stage setting and audience gelled to create a wonderful communal atmosphere that still commands respect. Too LCD for you? Shame on you.

And speaking of which, here's 2002's Hall of Shame: Portuguese punk band Ikara Colt (May) and their skinny retreads of Sham 69; the mistreatment of Six by the record music industry (the entire year) and, finally, the Hot Press Awards in Belfast (April), which quite simply and - in the opinion of this writer - calculatedly made awards to several undeserved recipients.