The Cranberries

[Serena]

Entrevusta

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yz-8Jn1x3KE

[Serena]

I've just read that The Cranberries have announced Raining In My Heart will be the second single!!!!!

[Serena]

PARIS (AFP) - Tired of non-stop touring and hurting for inspiration, The Cranberries hung up their guitars in 2003. Nine years on, the Irish rockers say the chemistry came right back for their new album "Roses", to be released on Monday.

The quartet from Limerick shot to fame in the 1990s with hits like "Linger" and the politically-charged "Zombie" about the Northern Ireland conflict, lifted by the powerful voice of singer Dolores O'Riordan.

They sold 40 million records worldwide, becoming one of the flagship bands of the decade, but by 2003, two years after releasing their album "Wake Up and Smell the Coffee", they had hit a dead end.

"In 2003, my son was five, my daughter was two. They were very little and I brought them both on the road," O'Riordan told AFP. "There was a point when I just felt it wasn't fair on them."

"Also creatively, we were stuck in a rut. We just needed a break."

So they went their separate ways, O'Riordan heading to a far-flung corner of Canada where she gave birth to two more children, while the rest of the band stayed put in Ireland.

And that could have been the end of the story, were it not for Trinity College, Dublin, which invited the singer to become an honorary patron of its philosophical society in 2009.

Asked by the university to perform for the occasion, she looked up her old companions -- and the question of getting back together came up.

"It felt like yesterday. It was in fact six and a half years I hadn't seen them," O'Riordan said. "We went to the pub and over a beer Mike (Hogan, the bass player) said we should do it now because we're not getting any younger."

And that was how the tour that O'Riordan -- now 40, like Hogan -- was about to embark on for her second solo album was turned into a Cranberries comeback tour, playing 107 dates around the world.

"My shock was to see young people in the audience," guitarist Noel Hogan -- Mike's brother -- told AFP. "During our break, all these kids were discovering our music on the Internet and they never thought we were going to play live ever again."

Once the tour was over, the four decided to book into a studio -- but with "no contract, no management, no record company," he said. "We were not obliged to do it, we just did it because it was what we wanted to do."

"Roses", the album born of those recording sessions, is instantly recognisable as the work of The Cranberries, with soft, airy melodies backing up O'Riordan's distinctive voice.

"I think this breathing comes from the fact we have a chemistry, which came back immediately," said drummer Fergal Lawler. "We know where it should go when we play together, it just flows."

"There's no ego, so it's not like someone was trying to take over," agreed O'Riordan. "Having experienced working with hired musicians, you can hire the top ones, but you can't hire chemistry," said the singer, who wrote all the lyrics on the album.

On it she talks of her concerns as an adult and mother, of the recent loss of her father, and the need to make the most of the present.

The Cranberries kick off a world tour on March 15, starting in New Zealand.

O'Riordan -- who this time will set off without the children -- jokingly admits she is looking forward to a bit of a holiday.

"At home I'm a house-keeper and a mum. The kids are, like, 'What's for dinner? Where are my clothes?'. On tour it's, like: 'room-service'!"

[Serena]

In it together

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GtzRN683H9A

[Serena]

Cranberries frontwoman Dolores O'Riordan says she's encouraged at the domination of British singer Adele in the last year.

"She's a voice, and she's classic," said the plain-spoken, Limerick-born O'Riordan, 40, in a Toronto hotel recently to promote the '90s-era pop-rock band's first album in 11 years, Roses, out Tuesday (Feb. 28)

"I like the fact that she doesn't peel them (clothes) off ... 'cause all the other broads are like, 'Here's me bum ... and whatever.' I kind of find of it aggravating 'cause I always think, 'Just 'cause we're women, why do we have to have our knockers hanging out?' Why can't we actually sing and get respected as good singers and songwriters without having our boobs and butt hanging out?'

O'Riordan, seated beside Cranberries guitarist Noel Hogan who is smiling as she speaks her mind, added it will be interesting to see how Adele's success plays out since, given she herself wrestled with The Cranberries' fame and its aftermath in the early-to-mid '90s .

"Every artist that's hugely successful, there's very often the backlash, and so I kind of wonder how it will go," said O'Riordan. "She's going to have to be a tough girl. She's going to have to be strong because she doesn't have a band. She's on her own and she's a young girl, so just fingers crossed that she'll be tough and she'll be able to deal with everything, 'cause I just have great admiration for her."

The Cranberries themselves took a major detour in 2003 when they went on hiatus after a disappointing 2001 album, Wake Up and Smell The Coffee, and writer's block.

O'Riordan released two solo albums, 2007's Are You Listening? and 2009's No Baggage, but as she was preparing to go out on her own around the second CD, she instead reunited with her old bandmates for tour.

"It was nice to be back with the lads because I've done so much with them, it felt like putting on your comfortable boots," said O'Riordan, who will play with the band on May 8 at Montreal's Metropolis and May 9 at Toronto's Sound Academy.

"And I had done Are You Listening? with a bunch of hired musicians but it didn't feel the same."

Turns out too that Hogan had been sending O'Riordan songs since 2005 so the creative juices were definitely flowing again.

In fact, a song he sent in 2011 particularly hit a nerve with O'Riordan, and it would turn into the title track from Roses, which was produced by the band's longtime collaborator Stephen Street.

"I went, 'Oh, my God, I love this,' " remembered O'Riordan. "And I just got really emotional because my father had cancer for six-and-a-half years and he was dying and I knew it and I knew as well that he wouldn't make the end of the year. I knew he wouldn't see 2012. So I remember I was really emotional and very sad but it just kind of came out like -- Bang! -- and it was just all thinking about my dad ... It was beautiful and it was my way of saying goodbye, I guess."

O'Riordan's father, Terence, died at the age of 74 on Nov. 25, 2011, in Limerick, but she had a "blessing in disguise" when he passed away at home surrounded by his wife of 50 years and their seven children.

"I was actually with him when he took his final breath," she said. "I was actually holding his hand so in a way there was great closure, and I felt really enlightened that the Lord had allowed me (that). And I kind of felt in a way that (my father) did that as well because he wanted to say, 'Go ahead now little one, don't worry about me, go ahead and do your thing.' "

O'Riordan loving life in Canada

Cranberries lead singer and Irish native Dolores O'Riordan says her full-time move to Canada three years ago has worked out well.

"It's been really good, it's so tranquil and that," O'Riordan told QMI Agency while in Toronto to promote Roses, the first Cranberries album in 11 years due Tuesday, Feb. 28. "It's very inspiring for writing."

Previously, O' Riordan's family -- six-year-old Dakota, 11-year-old Molly and 14-year-old Taylor plus 20-year-old Don. Jr, from Canadian-born husband Don Burton's previous relationship -- divided their time between Ireland and a home outside Peterborough, Ont., the latter that they bought in 1994.

The only downside to doing what are now essentially hometown shows in Toronto is the after-party.

"There's always casualties stories about my friend in the crowd, and who had too much whatever they were drinking," O'Riordan joked. "There's always a couple of casualties the next day. 'Cause Don is so social. He has tons of friends in Toronto. So there's always like hundreds of buddies. There's always a party in my bus. I remember the last time I was doing two in a row, and I think it was Massey Hall, and I remember I was going to go on my tour bus but I could see my bus shaking from outside. The whiskey was out as there were a load of friends like people who had come from up north and what not. And they were all on the bus."

THE CRANBERRIES' CANADIAN TOUR DATES:

May 08 Montreal QB, Canada Metropolis

May 09 Toronto ON, Canada Sound Academy

[Serena]

TORONTO - As much as The Cranberries still get a thrill from seeing audiences erupt to the opening chords of "Zombie," its members knew they could only resurrect the band if they had some new songs to play.
"I've sang 'Zombie' so many times that I actually feel like a zombie," joked singer Dolores O'Riordan in a recent interview to promote "Roses," the band's first studio album in more than 10 years.
"We've been doing our old hits for so long, you feel like you're stuck in a loop or something, so with new material you feel very much alive."
It took a long breather from life on the road before the band felt ready to reunite from the hiatus they declared in 2003, which ended 13 years of relentless recording and touring.
The bandmates originally hooked up as teenagers in the early 1990s and quickly grew into international rock stars. Their debut, "Everybody Else Is Doing It, So Why Can't We?", included the hit "Linger, which helped start the quick transition from playing bars and clubs and opening for the likes of Duran Duran, Radiohead and Suede to headlining arenas and stadiums.
"We just said, 'Look, let's go off and do our own thing,'" recalled O'Riordan, while sitting alongside fellow Cranberries songwriter Noel Hogan.
In the ensuing years, O'Riordan, her husband and kids found an isolated home away from the media spotlight in a remote Ontario town, north of Toronto. The picturesque surroundings and time away from her whirlwind life with the globe-trotting band helped influence two solo albums, "Are You Listening?" in 2007 and "No Baggage" in 2009.
"It's very inspiring being up north because of the beauty of nature," she said.
"The seasons are so dramatic here — from the snow in the winter to the beauty of the autumn, the colours of the leaves falling — so I have a piano outside my window and sometimes I start off there with ideas, just using nature as a backdrop.
"It's good for the head."
But O'Riordan and Hogan did trade song ideas back and forth over the years and decided they were ready to get back together again in 2009. They first committed to a massive reunion tour — with 107 gigs around the world — and trotted out all their big hits again, including "Linger," "Dreams," "Salvation," "Free to Decide" and, of course, the hard-rocking "Zombie."
"As many times as we've played it, still, to see the reaction of the crowd every time when Dolores plays the intro, whether it's 20 people or 20,000, the whole place just goes mad," said Hogan.
"We've probably played it more than any other song at this point but still, that small intro starts and then it explodes and the whole place goes mad — it's a cool feeling."
But once the comeback tour was through, the band committed to hitting the studio and coming up with some new tunes to play live. It was last year that they got together in Toronto to start recording "Roses," and O'Riordan said it felt just like old times, before everyone got burned out.
"I think (in years past) we did start to feel like, 'Oh, (we just) have to do another album,' but with this one we didn't have that feeling, it was like we were doing it for ourselves, for a laugh, more like the early albums," she said.
"We weren't trying to write anything too catchy or anything like that and a lot of the tracks on the album are really quite different. You know, maybe there's one or two that would be (considered) catchy but the rest are very experimental and different from what we've done before. We were trying to challenge ourselves creatively speaking."
The album's lead single is "Tomorrow," a track that everyone agreed was the right song to reintroduce the world to the Cranberries, Hogan said.
"The record company really pushed for it but I think we all knew to be honest when we heard it in the studio," he said.
"It's got everything a single should have; a first single in particular."
Added O'Riordan: "Unlike 'Zombie,' it's not an anthem or anything, but it's just a nice and catchy positive song.... It seemed like a nice one to start with, particularly with the way the globe is, the whole recession and all that.
"It's nice to just kind of throw something positive out there."

[Serena]

Although there was a moment during the mid-1990s when the Cranberries were completely inescapable, the band had somewhat lost its way artistically — and, in turn, a large segment of its once millions-strong audience — by the turn of the millennium.

To the Irish quartet’s credit, it knew it was running out of steam and got out of the game while the getting was good. Save a short reunion tour in 2010, it hasn’t been heard from again.

Until now, anyway. This Tuesday sees the release of the Cranberries’ first new album in 11 years, Roses. A rather more mild-mannered affair than the arena-baiting rock records with which it closed the first chapter of its career a decade ago, it plays a bit like a grown-up version of the band’s highly likeable 1993 debut, Everybody Else is Doing It, So Why Can’t We? — which makes perfect sense, according to the Crans themselves, since it was recorded in much the same headspace.

“Nobody even knew we were up to this,” says singer Dolores O’Riordan, still pixie-ish at 40, whilst conducting a day of interviews at a Yorkville hotel with guitarist and co-songwriter Noel Hogan earlier this week. “We went in the studio just to see what would happen. There was no record company, so we weren’t under any obligation to do this . . . We thought ‘No one’s ever going to listen to this, so let’s have a right laugh.’”

O’Riordan — who’s married to a Canadian and lives part-time in southern Ontario — and Hogan candidly admit that they were dissatisfied with the last couple of Cranberries albums, conceding that burnout and the pressure to maintain the multimillion sales of Everybody Else (and its indelible hit “Linger”) and its mega-hit 1994 follow-up, No Need to Argue, eventually got the best of the band.

Making Roses, however, brought back memories of how it was back in the days before “Linger” and “Dreams” propelled the group out of its hometown of Limerick to sudden global notoriety. With no one watching, the band was able to tap into “the freedom within that we had lost,” says O’Riordan, and just be itself with no concessions to record-label boardrooms or radio formats. No one, in fact, was even sure they were making a record.

Hogan and O’Riordan had been knocking song ideas back and forth via email since 2005 with no particular intent of reviving the Cranberries, although O’Riordan laughs that the idea “was always subliminally there.” The chemistry on the 2010 tour proved too powerful to ignore, however, so it was decided to head into Toronto’s Metalworks studio a year ago “more just for fun than anything.”

“The vibe was so good,” recalls Hogan. “We were all getting along and there was a lot of laughing, so we started to think maybe there was an album there to be made.”

Turns out there was, and now the band is gearing up for a good 12 months of globetrotting in support of Roses, including a May 9 date at Sound Academy.

It feels right to do it, both band members agree, otherwise they wouldn’t be getting back on the treadmill again.

“It just got to the point where, creatively, we were not doing anything that great,” says O’Riordan, who released two solo albums during the hiatus despite playing mom to three children. “I had a kid and went back on tour and then had a kid and went back on tour. I just felt like I wanted to stay home with my kids. So in 2003, I was, like: ‘Yeah, I’m gonna stay home and just take a break.’ I said to the lads, ‘What do you think?’ And they were feeling the same way, that maybe we should take a break.

“I just wanted to experience life not being in the Cranberries. I wanted to switch off, get the hell away and be human. Not be in a band, not have any contractual obligations, not have anyone breathing down your neck waiting for the next flippin’ thing that you do. So it was a nice feeling.”

Adds Hogan: “It didn’t really feel like a big decision at the time. It felt like a weight off our shoulders more than anything. It wasn’t like ‘If we leave, is that the end?’ It was more like ‘We have to get the hell out of here.’

“People find it hard to understand why you would walk away from that. From the outside, you look like you have everything a band would want. But actually, we just wanted normality in our lives, to be able to go home and do what everybody else does.”

[Serena]

Fergal Lawler, baterí­a de la banda, cumple 41 años!!
FELICIDADES!!! :011: :011: :011: :011: :011: :011: :011:

[Serena]

Setlist Nueva Zelanda

Tomorrow
Wanted
Just My Imagination
Ode To My Family
Dreaming My Dreams
Linger
Animal Instinct
Raining In My Heart
Desperate Andy
Astral Projections
Daffodil Lament
When You're Gone
I Can't Be With You
Waltzing Back
Free To Decide
Schizophrenic Playboys
Salvation
Ridiculous Thoughts
Zombie

Conduct
Roses
Promises
Dreams

[Serena]

You didn't need a time machine in Auckland last night. The moment Dolores O'Riordan belted out the opening notes of Ode To My Family it was just like being back in 1996.

That's when my love for The Cranberries began. It was my first concert - I was 11 - and my dad took me to see them in the James Hay Theatre in Christchurch. All I remember from the momentous occasion was seeing the tiny O'Riordan jump around on stage in a black leather outfit and the crowd going crazy in the moshpit in front of us. It was the 90s, after all.

Tonight, the crowd didn't quite have the same atmosphere or energy - it happens when most of your fans have slowed down, got married and had children in the intervening years - but The Cranberries still put on a flawless show.

Appropriately framed by a velvet backdrop, they played hit after hit - Dreaming My Dreams, Linger, Miss You When You're Gone, I Can't Be With You, and, of course, Zombie - with the unbridled enthusiasm you would expect from a band just starting out.

There's always that fear, when you go to see a band this well-loved and well-known, that they will torture their audience by playing the old hits just once every five songs in an attempt to make people catch onto their new material.

But The Cranberries gave their fans exactly what they came for - the chance to reminisce about a simpler time, long before the global financial crisis, September 11 and man-made climate change. As my concert companion said to me: "I wish I'd worn my Skechers".

O'Riordan's vocal chords don't seem to have aged with the rest of us. She still has that distinctive, polarising, sharp Irish twang which is a hallmark of The Cranberries' style. It's her voice that makes the new stuff blend in almost seamlessly with the old. I have to confess I haven't heard their new album, Roses, but I would be keen to give it a go after hearing a couple of tracks performed live.

The concert finished up with Dreams - one of those songs you somehow know all the words to despite not having heard it in more than a decade. It was a decent two-hour-long set, but it finished at a respectable 10.20pm - everyone was still probably home in time to pay the babysitter and put the kids to bed.

If I did have a time machine at my disposal, I'm not sure I'd even use it to go back to 1995. But there's a chance I'd take it back to the start of the night, just to have another evening basking in the familiar guitar chords of a well-loved old favourite

[Serena]

Setlist
Dreams
Linger
Tomorrow
Wanted
Ode To My Family
When You're Gone
Free To Decide
I Can't Be With You
Waltzing Back
Desperate Andy
Schizophrenic Playboys
Salvation
Ridiculous Thoughts
Zombie

[Serena]

Zombie @ Auckland

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tBrPf4bpx18&

[Serena]

Ode to my family @Auckland

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=57Ty7nG13JY&

[Serena]

Brisbane

Setlist:

    Dreams
    Linger
    Tomorrow
    Ode To My Family
    When You’re Gone
    Free To Decide
    I Can’t Be With You
    Waltzing Back
    Desperate Andy
    Schizophrenic Playboys
    Salvation
    Ridiculous Thoughts
    Zombie

[Serena]

Setlist

Dreams
Linger
Tomorrow
Wanted
Just My Imagination
Ode To My Family
Dreaming My Dreams
Animal Instinct
Raining In My Heart
Desperate Andy
Daffodil Lament
When You’re Gone
I Can’t Be With You
Waltzing Back
Free To Decide
Schizophrenic Playboys
Ridiculous Thoughts
Zombie
Conduct
Roses
Salvation
Promises

Zombie @ Singapur

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zkvNT3eroY&