Last few days Noel has been posting new photos on The Cranberries’ new Instagram page. These photos feature Noel, Mike and Ferg in some large spaces with lots of musical instruments, headphones and microphones… as if the boys were recording something! Another photo shows a music sheet of Zombie. Some fans were speculating that these photos were part of a recording session.And today we have another clue! A new photo on The Cranberries’ Instagram has a geotagging saying that it was taken at the Irish Chamber Orchestra Studio in Limerick! And Noel added the words: “One last take….†on his Twitter page.As some fans may remember, on February 24th, Dolores told in the interview after the court sentencing that she’s about to release two records, one with D.A.R.K. and the other with… The Chamber Orchestra!So it seems like the pieces of the puzzle are beginning to fall into place: The Cranberries are indeed recording (or rehearsing?) something at the Irish Chamber Orchestra Studio, and so far it looks like something acoustic (lots of acoustic guitars and Fergal’s famous Empty drums on photos). So what is it? An acoustic best of album with orchestrated arrangements? Or just a rehearsal at fancy studio… but why so many microphones? Time will tell!Anyway, these are very exciting news for The Cranberries fans, and we can’t wait to hear what are you thinking about this in our comments section!
Last week Noel Hogan got tattooed by Ross Nagle, a tattooist based in Limerick, Ireland.Here is the result posted by Ross on his Intagram
Thats it for rehearsal, next Cranberries stop is the show on the 3rd.
THE Cranberries are gearing up to make a return to the stage for the first time in nearly four years.The Limerick group will play a show in Lublin in Poland this week, their first time performing live together since late 2012.In recent weeks the Cranberries have been rehearsing in the Irish Chamber Orchestra’s building in UL, where they were captured in full flow by local photographer Ken Coleman, a digital media artist who has worked with a number of bands.Ken, who got to know songwriter and guitarist Noel Hogan through the Pigtown Fling project which formed a central part of City of Culture in 2014, took a stylised poster image and snippet of promo video of the group for the upcoming tour, an initial 10 dates the Cranberries will play before the end of September in Europe and the US.The UL interactive media graduate, 35, from Lisnagry, said the four bandmates were “relaxed and happy†in each other’s company when he photographed them, also capturing them on video, which Noel has since released online.“I got a couple of shots of them and the video and you can see at the very end that they are having a good chat, they were laughing and joking amongst themselves,†he said.“Noel asked me if I would be interested in doing a couple of shots of the lads, because they were trying to get together for the tour.“They are all in different places at different times, so we had a very small window of opportunity to get it done on a Sunday evening. “We knocked it out in about an hour and a half; green screen, live video, and the stills from that last practice before they packed up. “There was no real brief, I just went at it as I usually do, my own kind of style, and they were happy with the first draft I gave them.â€Ken has collaborated with local bands on similar projects and is also working with an American death metal band, but said it was a “nice step up†to work with an act of the profile of the Cranberries, who have sold an estimated 40 million albums worldwide."What is exciting is the international reaction - the video had 300,000 hits in a day, the Instagram had 48,000 likes,†he said.“For my own personal thing and from a career point of view, it is good, because I have been working on this now professionally for ten years, pretty much to the month,†added Ken who is gearing up to unveil a new digital art piece as the curator’s choice for June in the Hunt MuseumNoel has been drip feeding pictures through the band’s Instagram, with the hint emerging that they might be recording new music.Their last album, Roses, was released in 2012 and the Cranberries took it on a huge world tour.However, they did not play in Limerick, and have only done so once in almost 20 years, performing three songs at the Special Olympics opening ceremony in Thomond Park in 2010. Efforts are ongoing, the Leader understands, to try and rectify that and to bring the quartet home for a show, but nothing has been finalised.While they were rehearsing at the ICO building, a number of fans turned up and were warmly received by the group, who signed autographs and posed for pictures.
The next Cranberries concert will take place in France at “La Nuit de l’Erdre†on July 1st.The schedules were recently revealed on the website and all the social medias of the festival.The Cranberries will play a 1h30 show starting at 10:40 PM
THE CRANBERRIES ARE/WERE RECORDING AN ALBUM WITH THE IRISH CHAMBER ORCHESTRA.DOLORES: (…) at the time I felt like it (Roses) was going to be the last album, but the years go by, things happen in your life and you end up together.A cranberries ‘greatest hits’ album is due to be recorded soon with the Irish Chamber Orchestra and that project co-exists with the debut album by D.A.R.K.Dolores and the boys probably had not recorded anything when this interview was done, and to this day it is unclear whether the lads totally finished all their tracks/parts nor if Dolores even started recording hers.