Reviews

Irish Times writers review concerts by Kelly Rowland and veteran Irish rockers The Stunning and cult Australian band Machine Gun Fellatio.

Kelly Rowland

Vicar Street, Dublin

If Kelly Rowland passed you in the street you might just recognise her - she's the Destiny's Child singer who isn't Beyoncé Knowles.

As faceless as it is possible for a member of a million-selling r'n'b group to be, 22-year-old Rowland has exploited her (relative) anonymity with all the shrewdness you would expect of a 10-year veteran of the music industry. First, she confounded cynics with this year's Simply Deep album, a project blatantly more concerned with wooing critics than giving Beyoncé a run for her money in the singles' charts (that Grammy-scooping Nelly collaboration notwithstanding).

Now she has followed it with a solo tour which, with its stripped-down set and gospel-choir trappings, makes no bones of her wish to be regarded as a serious artist. Shackled by record company expectations, Knowles must dearly wish they could swap places.

However, going back-to-basics didn't mean Rowland was prepared to skimp on her wardrobe. Taking the stage in gold-lamé hot pants so revealing Kylie Minogue might think twice about wearing them, she looked like something beamed in from Planet MTV.

Had Rowland plumbed for flesh and blood musicians rather than robotic backing-tracks, it could have been an arrival to set your spine tingling.

Rather less exotic were her four male dancers whose camouflaged khakis and ripped combat tops were presumably meant to convey a spartan chic but merely gave the impression they'd stopped off at an army-surplus store on the way.

With Rowland - so unnaturally slender you fear a strong breeze might rupture something - nipping into the wings for a costume change between every third song it was a wonder there was room on the bus for their clothes.

She belted out a sassy Dilemma - with three backing singers filling Nelly's sneakers - in a golden jump-suit; crooned a sultry Obsession in a knee-high raincoat and stretched her tonsils on a sky-scraping version of the Bee Gee's How Deep is Your Love? - while sporting what looked like a hippy shift as re-imagined by Prada.

The black and white cow-girl outfit donned for a blink-and-you've-missed-it skip through Destiny's Child hit Bootylicious was obviously a favourite because Rowland kept it on for the rest of the performance - or had she finally run out of threads?

Edward Power

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The Stunning

Vicar Street

The Rolling Stones were the hot nostalgia ticket last week, but coming a close second were The Stunning, who played to a packed house on Friday.

The Galway band have been defunct for quite a few years, but popular demand and the re-release of their debut album, Paradise In The Picturehouse, has brought the band back together, if only for the month of September. Judging by the reaction of the crowd, The Stunning could milk this reunion at least until Christmas.

Led by the brothers Wall, Steve on vocals and guitar and Joe on vocals and bass, and featuring Derek Murray on guitar, Jimmy Higgins on trumpet and keyboards, and Cormac Dunne on drums, The Stunning were one of Ireland's top live draws during the late 1980s/early 1990s.

The album, Paradise In The Picturehouse, contained more anthems than a terrace-full of soccer fans, including Half Past Two, Got To Get Away, Romeo's On Fire and Brewing Up A Storm. England ignored The Stunning, but at home the band were the biggest thing around, playing sellout tours around the country, and even topping the bill at Féile in Thurles, above some Canadian bloke called Bryan.

And here they are again, looking as fresh as they did a decade ago, the crowd reliving their first youthful fumblings, and one reviewer thinking, God, where did the time go?

They open with Everything That Rises, then continue with The Girl With The Curl, She's Not There and She's On My Mind, giving it the full rattle and sending the crowd into transports of delight with each chorus. For the band, it must have been like getting up on a bicycle again - for the crowd, it's like being thrown back on the adolescent rollercoaster once more.

After a massive singalong of Half Past Two, the band is joined by Mundy for a rendition of Folsom Prison Blues, in honour of the Man In Black who died that morning. Then it all goes a bit flat, as the lads roll out some of their lesser-known tunes, and remain a tad too long on a middling groove. But fear not: it all turns out alright in the end, 'cos of course they've saved the biggest hits till last. Now, back to real life, people.

Kevin Courtney

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Machine Gun Fellatio

The Sugar Club, Dublin

Being gratuitously offensive and making worthwhile music are not ambitions that usually sit comfortably together but that hasn't stopped Machine Gun Fellatio having a go.

The bad news for the cult Sydney outfit is that their passion for gutter humour may forever doom them to the status of sleazy novelties. Leaving aside the band's unpleasant choice of name - simultaneously puerile, trite and slightly boring - there are nasty little songs such as Pussytown and (Let Me Be) Your Dirty F . . . ing Whore.

The irony of course is that the only thing truly objectionable about MGF is a misplaced belief that their weedy indie-disco hybrid is in any way fresh. Which isn't to say MGF's riotous Irish debut entirely lacked redeeming moments.

In full stride, the seven-piece worked themselves into a hellish groove, throwing out clattering keyboard lines, anxious squalls of feedback and enough rattling bass to loosen your back teeth. The pity is that they can cut it when they want to. Delivered in a strained croon by vocalist/keyboardist 'Pinky Beecroft' My Ex-Girlfriend's Boyfriend was - can you credit it? - charmingly naïve while Australian hit Rollercoaster boasted one of the most unassumingly gorgeous choruses you'll hear all year.

Edward Power