The Cranberries carries on

“I know I’ve felt like this before, but now I’m feeling it even more, because it came from you,” so goes the lyrics of The Cranberries hit song Dreams. 

We wouldn’t be surprised if the audience, largely made up of children of the ’90s, during the Irish alternative-rock quartet’s concert Tuesday night came out of the Big Dome bigger fans, feeling the love and feeling it even more for the band.

It was the band’s second performance in the country, and the final stop of its Asian concert tour promoting Roses, its first studio album since reuniting in late 2009 after breaking up in 2003. One of the leading rock figures of the ’90s, The Cranberries first came here in 1996.

The concert was well worth the wait.    

There were no theatrical antics, or some grand lights and sounds extravaganza, or fan-kissing and other similar gimmicks to amplify the concert experience (well, frontwoman Dolores O’Riordan wore quirky black and white outfits, held court with some boogie-like steps and ran around the stage, but that’s it).

Dolores together with the Hogan brothers — Noel (lead guitarist) and Mike (bassist) — and Fergal Lawler (drummer) rocked the house by letting their music do the talking.

The band fittingly opened the concert with its first-ever single Dreams from its mainstream debut in 1993. After all, this was a dream come true for many of us there, who were probably too young, didn’t have the means, or were still living in the province to make it to the band’s first concert 16 years ago.

The moment the familiar chords streamed in, people from the VIP to the General Patronage areas cheered and rose to their feet. And so commenced what would become a one big sing-along session almost all throughout, with Dolores’ unmistakable voice (not to mention her undulating way of punctuating songs) leading the way.

The lineup covered 22 songs, with the repertoire alternating from past to present, from loud to slow, from smash hits to lesser-known favorites, all culled from the band’s records since 1993, namely, Everybody Else Is Doing It, So Why Can’t We, No Need To Argue, To The Faithful Departed, Bury the Hatchet, Wake Up and Smell The Coffee and Roses.

Dreams was to be followed by more songs that lit up the charts in the ’90s — Linger, Animal Instinct, Just My Imagination, Ode To My Family, Analyse, When You’re Gone, Free To Decide, Ridiculous Thoughts, etc. These songs are about togetherness, broken relationships, protest, bitterness and happiness, and they probably resonate now more than ever for many of its fans from that generation, who have grown up and been through a lot.

The songs from Roses that the group performed included the upbeat Tomorrow, which Dolores dedicated to her daughter, who turned seven that day, plus Schizophrenic Playboys (a caution to stay away from sexual predators), Waltzing in Walthamstow and Raining In My Heart.

 Noel, who co-wrote the songs in Roses with Dolores, said in an interview with The STAR that they’re very proud of the tracks carefully selected for the album. 

In the end, we don’t think it really mattered anymore which ones were old and not during the concert, because the new ones still bear the hallmarks of the classic Cranberries sound, including the similar themes and the potent guitars and pounding percussions.

The band itself admitted that it returned to its musical roots in Roses. As the reviews are saying, it is as if the band has just picked up where it has left off and carried on with the strains of the past, albeit “mellower and more matured” this time around.

The Cranberries capped the concert with a bang with Zombie, the protest song with those heavy guitar riffs about the socio-political troubles in Northern Ireland, which was also the No. 1 song in 1994. Then Dolores said, “Thank you, Manila,” and departed the stage with the rest of the band. And the lights went off.

But no pleased crowd would allow them to leave just like that. There was no let-up in the clamor for more. The band did not play Promises or Salvation yet, people were saying. For a minute there, I thought they wouldn’t return.

But of course, they would. And so the band delivered three encore numbers, starting with two new ones Conduct and Losing My Mind, with Dolores simply saying afterwards, “I hope you like our new songs.”

Then the band wrapped up the night with the final blast from the past in Salvation, its No. 1 song on the 1995 Billboard Modern Rock charts, with the crowd inside the coliseum still knowing by heart its anti-abuse lyrics and dark and raw sound.

We were willing to excuse the band for some lapses (the passage of time if not a break from the scene can do that to some artists), but it was not necessary. It wasn’t hard to tell that the band has not aged (although we saw Noel unabashedly doing some back-stretching in between numbers). “Walang ka kupas-kupas” was the most common post-concert reaction we heard on the way out.

Indeed, The Cranberries still sounded solid and seamless with the chemistry among its members shining on stage, proving what Dolores said in our interview that “we’re in a really good place now” and perhaps, only making sure its return to the country would be unforgettable. As The Cranberries sings in Linger: “If you, if you could return, don’t let it burn, don’t let it fade.”