Damien Rice and the Frames

On our Irish friends’ recommendation, we went and saw Damien Rice at the Commodore on Tuesday night. Another Irish band (who apparently rival Monsieur Rice in popularity) The Frames opened. The place was pretty packed, actually–I was surprised by the turn-out. Unlike Colene, who suffered fools on the dance floor, we sat up on the balcony.

I’d never heard a single song by either band before, which was kind of refreshing. It meant that I was anticipating hearing a particularly song, or didn’t get bothered when the band did something bizarre with a favourite tune (though, in truth, I generally encourage experimentation like that).

The Frames seemed a decent, straight-ahead rock and roll band. They seemed kind of like an Irish Northern Pikes. Their songs seemed to follow a familiar pattern–start out quiet and slow, speed up and rock out, then finish with a long instrumental coda. The lead singer was charismatic, but that didn’t make up for his otherwise ordinary voice.

Damien Rice and band followed. Mr. Rice has a mature voice with a decent range, kind of Cat Stevens meets Eddie Vedder for tea. His songs seemed likable enough, and the band seemed tight. However, he had an irritating habit of applying distortion effects to both his voice and his acoustic guitar. Not just for a phrase or verse, but for entire songs. The result was a raging wall of sound that prohibited you from hearing a single lyric. It’s like he’s been reluctantly placed in the John Mayer, Dave Matthews and Jack Johnson genre, and is working furiously against it. Additionally, there’s a reason it’s called an ‘acoustic’ guitar. When you apply distorition and the waa-waa and strum furiously, all you get is trebly cacophony.

I need to figure out if this is common Damien Rice practice, or if his albums are less grating. By reputation, he’s a quality songwriter, and like I said, he’s got a quality voice. All in all, a decent night of music, but I would have appreciated more subtlety and less noise.

We sent our Irish friends to see Sarah Harmer at Whelan’s. Karl reports:

We went to see Sarah Harmer the other night – she was very good, better than I was expecting. We even bought the CD at the back on the way out, which I never do, so that’s a good sign! It was also the first night of the smoking ban here, so that made it even more pleasant…