It's been a long time, been a long, lonely time, but Robert Plant has finally reconciled himself to the legacy of Led Zeppelin.
And so 25 years after the demise of the four horsemen of the apocalypse, Plant is onstage at the Olympia, reawakening such songs as Going to California and What Is and What Should Never Be, and ripping into a lascivious version of Whole Lotta Love, and the smiles on his and the audience's faces say it all: rock 'n' roll is still a whole lotta fun.
In recent years, Plant has demurred from doing Zep-related activities, but he's not averse to throwing in a few Zep tunes when touring with his band Strange Sensation. He does 'em his way, though, turning When the Levee Breaks into a bluesy lament for New Orleans, and giving Gallows Pole an ominous edge.
One element of Zep is still there, however: that primal roar of a voice, which has become deeper and more resounding over the years without losing any of its power. When the 56-year-old Plant unleashes it at the Olympia, you can almost feel the plaster cracking and crumbling above your head. Or is that just your eardrums shattering? Happily, his band is well up to the task of interpreting Zep classics, adding their own ethnic shades to these primary-colour rock standards. Guitarist Justin Adams would carve out a modal passage on his Les Paul, then take a sudden left turn into Four Sticks. Guitarist Skin would play a rattling acoustic blues intro, then leap headlong into a thundering rock riff, filtering his electric guitar through some ancient effects boxes, probably bought in a souk in Marrakech.
The Zep songs are interspersed with songs from Plant's new album, Mighty Rearranger, which, handily enough, is a better Led Zeppelin album than In Through the Out Door. Another Tribe is driven by a clocking beat and choppy acoustic guitar chords, while Tin Pan Valley sails on a liquid synth signature before splashing out into an explosive riff, Plant howling like a predatory pack of wolves. And it's not just his voice that's in rude health: the finale of Whole Lotta Love proves that the old warrior can still wield his hammer of the gods. - Kevin Courtney
Resurgam, Irish Baroque Orchestra/Curnyn - St Patrick's, Dublin
Handel - Messiah
Christian Curnyn, who directed the Resurgam chamber choir and the Irish Baroque Orchestra in Handel's Messiah on Thursday night, makes no reference to the study of conducting in his printed biography.
And yet it was Curnyn who was the guiding light in this performance, turning it into something greater than the sum of its very considerable parts and making this Messiah one of the best I've heard in Dublin over the last several years. He had clear ideas about what he wanted and two ensembles capable of doing what he asked.
Many of his tempos were fleet but with no trace of strain, no headlong scramble to achieve high velocity - come what may - in the name of authenticity. He felt free to allow the interlude-like Pifa to breathe a relaxed, pastoral air, and to arrest the mounting excitement of the choir's "Worthy is the Lamb" so as to assign a new and slower, more majestic tempo to the final "Amen" chorus, thereby investing it with an unusually potent feeling of power, finality and greatness.
At the other end of the scale were a few breathtakingly high-speed choruses - notably "For unto us a child is born" - in which Curnyn unleashed Resurgam's nimble vocal agility in a way that highlighted the spirit of the text more than it simply showed off.
Tenor Joseph Cornwell and countertenor Stephen Wallace brought a measure of understatement in contrast to the drama and colour Curnyn drew from his period-instrument players and choir. Bass Owen Gilhooly took a more theatrical line. The fine quartet of soloists was led, however, by the exceptional presence and unusual blend of vocal beauty and almost speech-like clarity of soprano Claire Booth.
The massive bloom of the St Patrick's acoustic deprived the audience of an appreciable amount of Curnyn's carefully wrought detail.
Despite this, the quality and conviction of the performance created a strong, rare sense of justice being done to this great and oft-heard work. - Michael Dungan
Julie Feeney - Bewley's Café Theatre, Dublin
Julie Feeney appears to be multiplying. "There are two me's onstage," the Galway-born singer and composer tells a hushed Bewley's audience, having just duetted with her recorded self: "One you can see and one you can't see." She then introduces Alien, from her striking debut album 13 Songs, which, on record, features "just three me's and a clock". This growing wilderness of Julie Feeney's is a welcome thing; for at the moment there is no one else quite like her.
Unique is not a word often levelled at singer-songwriters, a similarly fast-proliferating legion that pours its woes into tired acoustic visions and important mumbles. But Feeney's music sidesteps such clichés with a background in music technology and choral singing that makes for an inspiring confluence. Songs such as Autopilot and You Broke the Magic boast as much experimentation as clarity, combining a healthy disrespect for the conventions of songwriting without burying Feeney's voice or sacrificing her gift for melody.
In the wrong hands the possessive nature of a self-produced, self-financed record could become overwhelming (Feeney plays almost every instrument on her album), but in the intimate embrace of Bewley's at night, Feeney's songs are ably reconceived for performance, compressed or expanded to feature Kate Ellis's stately cello on Too Late, Edel Griffith's dulcimer-like keyboard through the forlorn lullaby lilt of Luí, or the bright tintinnabulation of Max Marraccini's drums through an excellent You Bring Me Down.
Through it all Feeney remains both demure and free-spirited, relaxed enough to talk us through the "shoe situation" (her clogs aren't ideal for piano pedals), while performing with such steely focus that it is a relief each time she blinks. In the exquisite Aching or the enveloping vocals of Under My Skin, Feeney folds conventional themes into distinctly fresh ideas. You'd hesitate to contradict her, but in reality there's probably only one Julie Feeney. - Peter Crawley
McSwiney, RTÉ NSO/Anissimov - NCH, Dublin
Mozart - Adagio and Fugue in C minor K546; Piano Concerto in D minor K466. Shostakovich - Symphony No 4 in C minor.
The Adagio and Fugue which opened last Friday's symphony concert began life as chamber music. Mozart originally wrote the Fugue for two pianos and later transcribed it for strings, at which point he added the Adagio.
Alexander Anissimov, conductor emeritus to the RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra, appeared insistent that no residue of the work's small- scale origins should accompany its visit with him to the orchestral domain. And you could nearly hear Mozart cheering from the sideline as Anissimov drew a searing, forceful sound from his large string complement in the Adagio's argumentative exchanges and the Fugue's initial violence.
But whereas here the departure from chamber music was complete, there was ambivalence - indeed tension - in the ensuing performance of the D minor piano concerto K466. For while Anissimov seemed determined to take Mozart at his stormiest for all it was worth, soloist Veronica McSwiney seemed equally resolved to underline the element of intimacy, as if here, too, there were a debt to chamber music.
The result was a curious partnership. You sensed Anissimov was longing for a more powerful passion in obvious places such as the dramatic outburst which intrudes upon the otherwise tranquil second movement. McSwiney, meanwhile, persisted with an understated approach.
The final work, the Symphony No. 4 in the NSO's current Shostakovich cycle, found Anissimov uninhibited by matters of scale and let loose on the biggest orchestra the composer ever used for a symphony.
Shostakovich somehow completed the work in the months following the Stalin-instigated Pravda attack on his music in 1936, only then to postpone its premiere until 1961.
It is primarily loud, flamboyant music, Mahler-like, bursting with disconnected or else mysteriously connected ideas, too grand and too numerous to be contained by conventional procedures like sonata form.
With a fantasia-like freedom it turns and changes abruptly, putting even the proportions of its three-movement framework under strain.
There was a thrilling sense of barely controlled abandon in the now bright and sheer, now dark and dangerous playing which Anissimov drew from his former charges. It was a reminder of his special feel for Russian music. - Michael Dungan
Irish National Youth Ballet, The Nutcracker - Pavilion, Dún Laoghaire
While Nutcracker productions around the world charm audiences by constantly updating costumes and scenery, the Irish National Youth Ballet's version entertains because of the young dancers' earnest performances. The best bits here are the characters you don't see in New York or London, and the sense that other aspiring young dancers might someday be able to do this, too.
The curtain opens on Clara who receives a present from her uncle Drosselmyer - a Nutcracker doll that can dance. Through a series of usual twists and turns, the Nutcracker saves Clara from the cute but mischievous mice, then whisks her away to the dreamy Kingdom of Sweets.
The action accelerates when Clara starts throwing presents at the mouse king, and a golden angel enters, obedient followers in tow. The dancers do a fine job with basic ballet steps, but when the snowflakes enter the technical ability speeds up.
By presenting a range of dancing ability in act two, this Nutcracker reveals what it is like to work in a professional company. A group of likeable characters take their turn - including the enchanting Chinese dancers and the very welcome Irish dance group - but not until the flower fairy (Zoe Ashe-Browne), sugar plum fairy (Chika Temma) and her prince (Denis Muruev) enter the scene does the performance reach its crescendo.
If the young dancers keep practising, they might also appear in a glittering tutu one day. And, as if sparked by this Nutcracker's magic, some fledgling ballerinas afterwards went dancing down the street. - Christie Taylor
Lunny, O'Toole - Mermaid Arts Centre, Bray
The recently formed duo of Cora Venus Lunny and Redmond O'Toole have programmed their debut concerts with imagination and resourcefulness.
In a piquant selection of music, she doubles on violin and viola to his accompaniment on Brahms guitar - the 8-string newcomer that's played vertically like a cello, and is acoustically amplified (via a spike) by a floor-level soundbox.
The opening Canciones populares españolas by de Falla showed that a melody in Lunny's hands becomes something quite irresistible. There's a dynamic expressiveness in her playing that comes from constantly progressing from one nuanced shade to another.
That her bowing too is unusually fluid yet never wanting in efficiency was made clear in the adagio theme from Rodrigo's Concierto de Aranjuez.
O'Toole provided a balanced and sensitive backing in both Spanish pieces. Negotiating his way through the accompaniment to Schubert's Arpeggione Sonata, however, he allowed his instrument's extra resonance to blur certain harmonies. Clarity likewise took a back seat in a solo item - Giuliani's Rossiniana no 1- - though here the Brahms guitar's rare sustaining power and broad tonal spectrum were impressive.
Written under the Mermaid's own commissioning scheme, and receiving its first performance, was Benjamin Dwyer's violin-guitar duet Lineas. Dwyer revisits the technique of his guitar solo Voces criticas, with results that are less radical but altogether easier on the ear. The texture is figurative, the mood busy, the timing impeccable. - Andrew Johnstone
