COUNTING CROWS/CRACKER

COUNTING CROWS/CRACKER (SFX, Dublin)

The first ever appearance by David Lowery, the former classic composer in Camper Van Beethoven and now of Cracker, was eagerly awaited and long overdue. It was also a triumphant success with the venue nearly full at 8.00pm. ‘EuroTrash Girl’ and ‘Low’ went down particularly well but the performance of the spellbindingly brilliant Camper song ‘Sweethearts’, which closed their set, dumbfounded the mainly teenage audience who were obviously unaware of the head Cracker’s illustrious past.

For my part, I would have been quite content to have gone home there and then but instead Counting Crows came along and spoiled things with their tedious brand of deep and meaningless pseudo-poetic rock.

Just what the attraction of this bunch is, I do not know. People were going hysterical every time Adam Duritz gave his arse so much as the slightest wiggle. And while we’re on the subject of his twin cheeks, that’s exactly where he can shove his Bob Dylan and Van Morrison fixations. To be obsessed by one is unfortunate, but both of them . . . that’s a total disgrace and completely unforgivable.

Sure, the show was competently executed and a half-decent version of ‘Maggie May’ was trotted out in the encore but the only reason it stood out was because Duritz’s own songs, like the opener ‘Goodnight Elizabeth’, the closing ‘A Murder Of One’ and all the other ones in between (especially the atrocious ‘Mr. Jones’) must rank among the most self-indulgent musical exercises to have emerged from the bowels of Berkeley, California.

A truly cynical band. But you can’t fool all of the people all of the time.

• Nicholas G Kelly