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If you want to hear the Cranberries at their best, put one of their disks on your CD player at home.
That's not to say last night's show wasn't good. Certainly the 13,000 screaming fans seemed to think it was.
All the ingredients were there and the set was certainly solid.
They had an extravagant, cutting edge light show. The stage was set with giant geometric figures for a backdrop, one of which - best described as a cube with one side slanted - rotated to reveal a grand piano.
Singer/ bandleader Delores O'Riordan even changed her outfit three times (We didn't know rock stars still did that.) and trounced about the stage with great energy despite a massive brace on her left leg. Unfortunately she gave no explanation for this mechanism which gave her leg the appearance of something out of a Terminator movie.
Guitarist Noel Hogan appeared to be playing every number - even the slow ones - as though they were a full tilt rockers, while Feargal Lawler's drumming style began the resemble The Who's Keith Moon's more and more as the evening progressed. This might help explain why he trashed his drum set and hoofed a hole in the bass drum a concert's end.
Yet the Cranberries failed to draw the audience in. They didn't take them for a ride. Instead of building up to some kind of peak, O'Riordan and her band mates chose to intersperse such hits as Linger, Ode To My Family, Salvation and Free To Decide with their lesser known material, rarely building any kind of momentum. Granted they did finish off their set with their biggest song, Zombie, which was a crescendo of sorts.
On the whole, the music was played loud and the sound was big, filling the entire amphitheatre like rock and roll music should.
But the Cranberries have never come across as a serious rockers. Their live show seemed to lose all the subtleties that make their sound so interesting and unique on CD.
Jam! Rating: Three stars
PHOTO: DOLORES O'RIORDAN ... All eyes were on The Cranberries' lead singer at last night's Toronto show. -- Mark O'Neill, Toronto SUN