Date: Fri 13-Sep-1996

Publication: Bee

Author: SHANNO

Illustration: C

Location: A11

Quick Words:

Cranberries-O'Riordan-Meadows

Full Text:

(rev Cranberries concert @Meadows, 9/13/96)

Concert Review-

Amidst Fran's Remnants, The Cranberries Played Up A Storm

(with photo)

By Shannon Hicks

HARTFORD - Dolores O'Riordan never fails to make a statement, whether with her

powerfully-written songs or her fashions on stage. Last Saturday, nearly 8,000

fans of O'Riordan and her band, The Cranberries, gathered at the Meadows Music

Theatre in Hartford for one of the venue's final shows of this summer. And

from start to finish of the band's nearly two-hour set, The Cranberries served

up a fully satisfying selection.

The September 7 Hartford show was hardly a sell-out performance, but everyone

who turned up enjoyed themselves. The ongoing rain may have held back a number

of last-minute ticket purchases for the lawn seats, but a healthy number of

fans still came in, outfitted in full rain gear and toting plastic bags for

seats.

Security was comfortable enough, as a matter of fact, to allow those in the

lower pavilion seats to rush the stage only four songs into the band's set,

welcoming lead singer/songwriter O'Riordan and the band (guitarist Noel Hogan,

bass player Mike Hogan and drummer Fergal Lawler) back to Hartford that much

more. Saturday was the second appearance by the internationally-followed

four-piece band from Limerick in as many years; the Cranberries were one of

the bands to play the Meadows' inaugural summer season in 1995.

With three albums' worth of material to choose from, the Cranberries have been

heard on modern rock radio stations pretty steadily for the past three years,

with the debut that year of the album Everybody Else Is Doing It, So Why Can't

We?

A string of hits has followed, beginning with "Linger," the song that

propelled the band into the spotlight that year, and continuing through "Free

To Decide," the group's current single off its third album, To The Faithful

Departed . The two singles were played back-to-back early in the show.

Also heard were two of the band's new songs - the first of which was the first

release off the new album - which are interesting in that they tell a story

from two points of view. "Salvation," a look at the drug culture - heroin in

particular - is told from parents' and teenagers' points of view, and "I Just

Shot John Lennon" condemns the actions of Lennon's murderer while also

examining the tragedy from the fanatic's mind.

What may be ironic about the latter song is that while it invokes a name that

will forever live on in history, many of the Cranberries' audience is

certainly too young to remember the event "I Just Shot John Lennon"

chronicles. Nevertheless, as some guy used to say on an old television show,

"It's got a good beat and you can dance to it."

Speaking of dancing, O'Riordan got into her own groove-thing early on and

never stopped. The very slight singer has her own style, kind of stomping her

feet, wiggling her hips, swiveling around the stage, shaking her hands... The

O'Riordan.

Along with her dancing, O'Riordan has a wonderful fashion sense, as mentioned

earlier. She is as flamboyant in her attire as her vocals are amazing.

Saturday she did not disappoint: Her first outfit was a dazzling red corduroy

short over a white tank top and a long black sparkly skirt. Mainstream for

most, but it was the accessories that made it succinctly O'Riordan: The hard

red rubber boots and the red hair net with short dangling lines of beads.

By the end of the set, O'Riordan was dancing around in a pair of black

leggings and a sleeveless T-shirt. The flamboyant "accessory" to this outfit

was a knee brace which nearly swallowed the performer's left leg, a leftover

from a hospital trip for knee injuries (a three-week period that still didn't

slow O'Riordan down; it was during this time she wrote the moving track

"Bosnia," also from the new album). But the brace, no matter how frightening

or menacing-looking, did not slow down the energetic performer one iota.

The only time she seemed to slow down, as a matter of fact, was for the first

encore song. O'Riordan returned to the stage in a black spaghetti strap

summer-length dress, partially covered by a brown-pattern jacket, to croon

Patsy Cline's "Crazy," a song, she said, she has loved since she was "a little

kid."

The Cranberries' last two albums were written on the road, where the band has

been found almost constantly for the last five years. Following an extensive

worldwide tour in 1993 for the band's first album, Everybody Else Is Doing It,

So Why Can't We? , which included a performance at Woodstock II, the

Cranberries returned to the studio to record their second album, No Need To

Argue .

The newest collection of works, To The Faithful Departed , was recorded in

Ireland in just four weeks; most of these songs were written while touring for

No Need To Argue , so the band was ready to get back on the road once again to

begin playing. The end of this year will mark the beginning of a well-earned

break for the quintet from Limerick.

The band plans a one-year breather, but that doesn't mean members won't be

working during 1997. O'Riordan, both Hogans and Lawler already have plans to

spend time in the studio, working on album No. 4.

Rock band Cracker opened the September 7 show, playing a 35-minute set that

was capped with the band's best song ever, "Teen Angst" (which, unfortunately

for the band, came off its first album; Cracker is now on album No. 3).

A problem with one of the Meadows' transformers immediately after the band's

set delayed the opening of the Cranberries' set, which did not begin until

nearly 9:45. Fortunately, the performance by O'Riordan & Co. was worth the

wait.