They are my favorite band.
I bought the CD on a whim when I was traveling by Greyhound bus from Fresno to Vancouver Canada to visit my extended family in 2001 after my Freshman year of college. As American as I come across, I am Canadian, or at least this is what my passport says. I must have listened to the CD 20 or 30 times straight through, memorizing each line and pause. It was the ideal melancholy music to stare out the window to as the bus wound its way through the towering Rocky Mountains and small towns.
Since then I have bought the rest of their CD’s and their music is perfect for those afternoons when I sit down at my computer to get lost in my thoughts and attempt to put them into writing.
Kate, Rachael and I drove to L.A. Friday afternoon and arrived around 7 p.m. After parking we wandered the area surrounding the Nokia Theater trying to find a place to grab a quick bite to eat, but there were only sit down restaurants with high priced menu’s. We decided to wait to eat until our return back. The doors opened at 7:30 and we were in our seats by 8 p.m. The excitement in the room was palpable, but after waiting for an hour it waned slightly.
At 9 p.m. Griffin House walked on the stage and after a brief pause, stated, “I’m not Delores.” The audience laughed. After a brief introduction, he asked us if we would help him. He knew we weren’t here to see him, but he was going to walk off stage and asked if we help him pretend that we were excited to see him. He walked off stage. When he walked back on the audience went wild.
Picking up his guitar, he smiled, said thank you, and began to sing. He was good. A number of times, it felt as though he reached into my chest, took my heart out and wrung it with the poignancy of his lyrics and the experiences/truth he was communicating. His music expressed laughter, love, sorrow and musings.
He left the stage at 9:30 to raucous applause and the audience was left to wait as the final stage preparations were made for the Cranberries.
Most of the band appeared and took their places amidst whistles and shouting. And then she appeared. Dolores O’Riordan. The voice of the Cranberries. She was not what I expected, although her voice was exactly as it sounds on my CD’s.
She was short and slim. Dark, almost black, hair, cut short, framing the shape of her head. An Eastern looking skirt and a jacket with a large emblem on the back. When she began to dance/step around the stage, I couldn’t help but smile. She looked so normal, dancing as most of us would dance around our houses. Her moves were not choreographed, or if they were, they were not choreographed well. But despite the lack of flair in her outfit and moves, she captured the entire audience with her voice, music and presence. She seemed comfortable in her own skin and genuinely glad to be on stage, sharing her music with us. She had the audience join in a number of the songs, and for the beginning of one song, even lay down on the stage and sang looking up at the ceiling until the song picked up, at which point she picked herself up and began to dance and skip around the stage once more.
I love artists and the way they see the world and then capture it in their art, putting a part of themselves into it. A part that most of us can relate to, whether it be a question, a thought, a feeling or an experience. I found myself inspired by the way she seemed to be herself and to be completely comfortable with who she was. Near the end of the concert she shared a song that has not been recorded yet, written in the last 9 months and I was surprised to hear the same emotion and passion in its lyrics as in her other music.
This gave me hope. Life does not have to take all we have.
We can hold onto passion and intensity and continue to sing with gusto as we grow older, creating things that shine. A song. A poem. A friendship.
Life is an adventure and this was a fun #3 for my 27th year of life.