Music Review
Ryan Adams and the Cardinals
Hammersmith Apollo
David Thorpe
RYAN Adams music, which mixes the best of country, rock and folk, has
made him one of the most popular musicians in the world.
Albums such as Heartbreaker and Jacksonville City Nights testify to the
brilliance of Adams as a songwriter and reveal him to be one of the best
guitar players on the planet.
An intimate venue like the Hammersmith Apollo should have been the perfect
showcase for these talents but the second of the American’s two
sell-out gigs proved to be rather disappointing for die-hard fans and
newcomers alike.
Ryan is not really suited to the structure imposed by a big live gig.
He tends to drift onto long tangents and play the music he, rather than
the fans, wants. The guitar solos which work so well on an album because
they are kept to a decent length failed during this gig because there
were too many of them and they went on for too long.
An Adams gig can never be anything other than enjoyable and he showed
his outstanding musical ability when performing his classic and best-known
tunes from his days as frontman of Whiskeytown.
These defiantly rock tunes such as Dancing With Women At The Bar were
immensely popular with the men in the audience while Adams more melodic
solo work, such as Come Pick Me Up, proved a hit with the women.
That he can press so many buttons with widely different audiences is the
reason Ryan Adams is so popular.
Despite there being so much to like and enjoy about this gig diehard fans
would have been left a little disappointed. Ryan Adams live contains none
of the thrills of hearing him on an album. The American is worth seeing
certainly but not worth going to see.
 Various Artistes
Now Dance 2007
By Phil Savva
THOSE wonderful people at NOW... are back again this time with their
annual compilation of dance music.
Now Dance 2007 is a great double CD collection of some of the hottest
dancefloor numbers to have been released over the past six months or so
and features one or two older classics as well.
CD1 opens with Bob Sinclar’s current hit Rock This Party. This is
a great tune which samples the old C&C Music Factory’s Everybody
Dance to good effect.
In fact several of the tracks on this compilation benefit from sampling
hits of yesteryear. Beatfreakz’s Somebody’s Watching Me is
of course a revamp of the Rockwell hit, while Eric Prydz’s Call
On Me samples Steve Winwood’s Valerie and Deep Dish team up with
the incomparable Stevie Nicks to rework the Fleetwood Mac classic Dreams.
Of the new sounds on CD1 by far the best are Chris Lake’s smash
Changes, Supafly Inc’s Moving Too Fast (incidentally sampling Phil
Collins’ Another Day In Paradise) and Solu Music’s Fade.
CD2 has pretty much the same combination but perhaps isn’t as strong
in the line-up.
Still there are plenty of highlights with Tomcraft’s synthesiser
masterpiece Loneliness, DJ Sammy’s summer smash Heaven and my own
current particular favourite Supermode’s reworking of the Bronski
Beat hit Smalltown Boy.
Would you like to win a copy of Now Dance 2007? The Irish Post has five
copies to give away. Just send your name and address on a postcard marked
Now to the usual address or e-mail us at irishpost@irishpost.co.uk
Various Artistes
Radio 2: The Playlist
By Phil Savva
A CLASSIC triple-CD collection of old and new as featured on BBC Radio
2’s playlist over the past few months.
CD1 features such gems as Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody, Robbie Wiliams’
Angels and KT Tunstall’s Suddenly I See.
CD2 offers up David Gray (The One I Love), Ronan Keating (Life Is A Rollercoaster),
Kylie (Spinning Around) and Joss Stone (Super Duper Love).
CD3 has some real classics from David Bowie (Life On Mars), Roxy Music
(Love Is The Drug), The Kinks (Waterloo Sunset) and Bob Dylan (Shelter
From The Storm).
The soundtrack to your life.
|
