Reviews

A look at the world of the arts through the eyes of Irish Timesjournalists.

REM

Olympia Theatre, Dublin

This is not a show - or at least that's what the sign projected onto the stage backdrop states. "This is a rehearsal, not a show," echoes Michael Stipe as REM take to the stage for the first of five nights, a sequence of gigs (or are they?) that features the American band in run-through mode, and includes for the main part new material.

So we come to this event in a different frame of mind. Because this is not a show, these words you are reading do not constitute a review. There is no set list because it seems that even the band is unsure of what song should be played next - and even if there were the song titles could change in the space of a chord change. One song is Peter Buck's favourite; another song may not even end up on REM's forthcoming album; another song seems to change mid-stream; and yet another one is so freshly minted that Stipe had just finished writing the lyrics prior to coming on stage.

Armed with a pair of reading glasses and a laptop, Stipe, alongside REM's other core members, Peter Buck and Mike Mills, tentatively made his way through the very public practice session, muttering here and stumbling there, but like his band mates always on top of his game. The new songs crackled with life, energy and bite, with most of them so crunchy you could almost reach out and snap them in two. The sparse sprinkling of familiar material - which included the rarely performed Little Americaand These Days, and the rather more recent Electroliteand New Test Leper- were cherries on top of an already rich cake.

Whatever this was - the words brave, audacious, abstract, charming, emotive and exciting spring to mind - it focused on a band engaging with their art in a personal, zealous and obstinate way. Despite several mis-steps through the years, REM remain a potent if genial force in modern rock music, traditional in many ways yet perceptive enough to care about the reasons why people fell in love with them in the first place.

A question: why should REM bother with this kind of eyeball-to-eyeball communal experience - the crashes, bangs and mistakes of attempting to mould works in progress before your eyes - when the likes of The Rolling Stones, U2 and others too numerous to mention are either too aloof from or too apprehensive of their audience to try something along similar lines? The answer is simple - because they're REM and this is what they do. - Tony Clayton-Lea

The Who

Marlay Park, Dublin

Two oul' fellas are onstage making an almighty racket, watched rapturously by a large crowd ranging in age from 10 to - probably - 100. Grandpa Townshend swings his right arm in a windmill formation, wringing skullcrunching noise out of his guitar, while Grandpa Daltrey grunts, "hope I die before I get old" with only the merest tinge of irony.

They first stuttered those words in 1964 and, four decades later, these two elderly gents are in an enviable position - revered by longtime fans as eminences grises of rock 'n' roll, and respected by a young generation as the past masters of the guitar pop arts.

The ultimate kudos came when The Who closed Glastonbury, and now here they are in a Dublin suburb, ripping through such classics as I Can't Explain, The Seeker, You Better You Betand Pinball Wizardfor what must be the umpteenth umpteenth time. The torrential June rain has taken the day off, and the atmosphere is akin to a village country fest - with The Who on in place of Foster & Allen. "Nice to see all you young people here," beams Townshend, before kicking into another pop anthem written centuries before said young people were born.

When The Who played Oxegen last year, showing such young 'uns as Arctic Monkeys and Kaiser Chiefs where it all originated, they stuck to the big, recognisable hits, conscious that the appetite for new Who material is not as strong as the desire to relive the old glories. Perhaps emboldened by the great reception they've been getting, however, the guys have snuck in a few more recent tracks, including some from their current album, Endless Wire.

Usually, this would be the signal for a mass exodus to the beer tent, but Fragmentsseems so contiguous with Baba O'Reilly, you hardly notice the vast time difference.

Real Good Looking Boy, about Elvis, borrows the refrain from Can't Help Falling In Love, while Man in a Purple Suitis a rant against the religious mullahs who purport to govern our souls. After a finale that includes the still-incendiary Won't Get Fooled Againand excerpts from Tommy, the granddaddies of them all bow out with Tea and Theatre, Daltrey holding up a large mug of tea as though wielding the head of his vanquished enemies.

Another victory for rock's Golden Guys. - Kevin Courtney

Justin Timberlake

RDS, Dublin

Justin Timberlake is pulling out all the stops to cement his reputation as pop's hottest property. To this end, we have the Future Sex/Love Show world tour, a sprawling behemoth of a live set with a multi-layered stage, thronged by dancers and a red-hot backing band, and besieged on all side by women wielding stilettos, handbags and inflamed passions.

As the audience's shrieks howled out the sound, Timberlake raced valiantly from stage to stage, dancing and grooving his way through 360 degrees of performance, democratically giving every baying front what it craved - a little bit of Justification.

But does it work, this juggernaut of funk-inflected polished pop? When he's on form, it is astounding to watch. The opening track, Future Sex, had the crowd in paroxysms of enthusiasm, and when he strapped on a guitar to tease the crowd with the opening few bars of Like I Love You, you could taste hysteria in the air.

However, when he takes to the piano for some quieter numbers, it fast become apparent that you can take the boy out of the boy band, but you can't take the boy band out of the boy. These soul-pop numbers dull the concert's blade. Also, the bewildering set-up means that, for many tracks, the band are either side of the main central stage, and have no line of sight.

Although these are total professionals, direct communication almost always means better playing - the kind of playing that breeds spontaneity and inventiveness. Here, there is not a bum note, not a misplaced dance step and not a single "wardrobe malfunction" - but there is also not one chord or move that has not been rehearsed to within an inch of its life.

A mid-set break gives the floor to Timbaland in what is an utterly underwhelming half-time effort. Lacklustre scratching and mixing turns into stadium-sized karaoke, with Timbaland singing over tracks from his new album in what amounts to little more than an ad for the record.

Timberlake, however, would never let things slip too much out of his control. After the commercial break, he reopens the set with a funktastic version of Rock Your Bodyand, although he veers off to the piano again, Cry Me a Rivererodes any pockets of resistance that had accumulated, with the superb band breaking it down and toughening it up with enthusiasm and originality. The set-closing SexyBackis astounding - red lights whip through the air, lending a sultry, gritty atmosphere to what is a superbly provocative track, with Timbaland finally earning his spot on the roster on backing vocals.

This was a superb finish to a gargantuan show, and, should he trim 40 minutes off the roughly two and a half hour set and keep the keys largely at bay, Timberlake will have one of the best pop shows in memory to his credit. - Laurence Mackin

McHale, NYOI/ Gearóid Grant

University Concert Hall, Limerick

Smetana- Bartered Bride Overture

Beethoven- Emperor Concerto

Shostakovich- Symphony No 5

Ever since the board of the National Youth Orchestra of Ireland announced the amalgamation of its two main orchestras there has been an air of crisis attaching to the organisation. In large numbers, parents, players (former and current), teachers and professional musicians alike rejected the idea as a move in the wrong direction.

The board has since rowed back slightly on its proposals, and also made the long overdue appointment of a new general manager. The first concerts by the new orchestra of 14- to 21-year-olds that the board has created were given last weekend.

I caught up with the new band for the second of its three outings, at the University Concert Hall in Limerick on Saturday, where the news was not good. It was not a musically rewarding evening.

In fact, it was like a throwback to much earlier days in this orchestra's life, when the basics of ensemble and intonation were often precarious, and tonal finesse extremely limited. Getting through the notes by hook or by crook often seemed to be the major concern.

Conductor Gearóid Grant has to bear a lot of responsibility for the failings. His handling of Smetana's bustling Bartered BrideOverture set out his stall quite clearly, offering the musical equivalent of the sing-song reading of poetry, where metre rules rather than meaning.

The communication of a consistent and all-too-rigid awareness of barlines and downbeats may have been intended as a security precaution. But it also worked to suffocate natural-sounding musical expression. And Grant's concerns all seemed to be short-term, so that he failed to keep a grasp of the larger picture.

Shostakovich's Fifth Symphony after the interval got off to a rather better start. But the patchiness of the playing, the shifts between raucous climaxes and tonally undernourished quiet passages, got in the way of any sense of symphonic continuity and connectedness. There were, of course, times when the accomplishments of key players, some woodwind soloists and the leader Denice Doyle's solos, made things momentarily effective.

But, strange as it may seem, there were also passages where the music became effectively unrecognisable as itself.

The evening's most rewarding contributions came from pianist Michael McHale in Beethoven's EmperorConcerto.

He seemed unfazed by the vagaries of conducting and orchestral playing, and steered a straight and effective course through the music, with a particularly winning, soft-spoken manner in the slow movement. - Michael Dervan