The Gazette (Montreal) October 19, 1992, Monday, FINAL EDITION Sinead O'Connor's career at risk as fans respond to her anger with their own STEVE MORSE Who would have guessed the fans of Bob Dylan, the consummate rebel of his time, would turn on Sinead O'Connor, the pop iconoclast of a new era? But there they were, packed into seats procured through gold- tinted credit cards, booing the Irish singer with such intensity that she froze at the mike before finally spewing forth an unplanned solo and walking offstage in tears at Friday's pay-per- view Dylan tribute concert at Madison Square Garden. The crowd, filled with fortysomethings who three decades ago ushered in the era of protest music by hoisting their fists to the defiant tunes of a young Dylan, showed little patience with O'Connor. Two weeks ago, the 25-year-old Irish singer tore up a photo of Pope John Paul II on Saturday Night Live and called him the "real enemy," which prompted thousands of complaint calls to NBC. O'Connor has fast become a new kind of pop antagonist - a loose, venom-spewing cannon whose scattergun brand of rebellion is a lot more unnerving than Madonna's contrived eroticism, Prince's macho narcissism or Axl Rose's self-indulgent, bad-boy ravings. O'Connor ripping up the pope's picture was probably the single most enraging pop act since John Lennon said the Beatles were more popular than Jesus - a statement surely less deliberate than O'Connor's. Friday night was O'Connor's first public performance since the notorious TV show. She came on stage to sing Dylan's I Believe in You but seemed distracted by the boos mixed in with subdued applause. After freezing at the microphone for nearly a minute, O'Connor was assisted by emcee Kris Kristofferson, who came out to say quite audibly, "Don't let the bastards get you down!" The backup band tried to cue her into the Dylan song, but she waved them off and stood motionless, almost cockily, behind the microphone. The crowd, which had greeted her with more applause than boos when she first came out, grew frustrated and the boos increased. She then hurriedly sang Bob Marley's War (the same song she sang on Saturday Night Live before tearing the pope's picture), adding a spiteful new verse about "child abuse" and "subhuman bondage," before leaving. The Dylan show climaxed a week in which O'Connor continued to attack the Catholic Church, defended radical rapper Ice Cube, defended convicted rapist Mike Tyson (and blasted the woman he raped for going on talk shows to discuss it), expressed glee that the Los Angeles riots happened and suggested everyone should smoke marijuana but no one should vote. "I will never vote in my life," she told Rolling Stone magazine. On Friday, before the Dylan tribute, O'Connor incited more controversy during a radio interview in New York. She again attacked the church, blaming it for genocide, child abuse and for hiding the truth of the Irish potato famine: "What happened in Ireland also happened in France, Africa and India. It also happened to the Indians here. None of these things could have happened without permission from the Catholic Church. She said the Catholic Church has a power that "comes from fear. That's why they had to kill entire races of people." She added: "The Catholic Church ... wrote lies in the history books." Her remarks brought a response from Kathleen McCreary, spokeswoman for the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights. "This poor woman not only needs a good historian, she also needs a psychiatrist," said McCreary. "It's difficult to get angry at these statements because she obviously has a compulsion for notoriety... . These are just rantings." O'Connor, now 25, has been a bold, defiant mouthpiece since emerging two years ago as the hottestselling new act of the year. She stirred up a furor with her refusal to allow the U.S. national anthem before a New Jersey show (prompting the wrath of Frank Sinatra, who played there the next night), then cancelled a scheduled appearance on Saturday Night Live when she found out shock comic Andrew Dice Clay was to be the host. She then boycotted last year's Grammy Awards, claiming they were just rewarding greed. Where does her anger come from? O'Connor grew up in suburban Dublin, but after her parents split up when she was 8, she began shoplifting and was placed in a reform school for girls with behavioral problems. "I will never experience panic and terror and agony over anything like I did at that place," she said. She later ran away to Dublin, becoming a kiss-o-gram girl and playing Dylan cover songs in the pubs. Her big break came when U2 guitarist David (The Edge) Evans included her version of the song Heroin on his soundtrack to the film Captive. O'Connor, because of her tragic youth, has had many people in her corner, but her latest moves have suggested she may be going over the edge. A week ago today, she huddled with a girlfriend in the bar of New York's Rihga Hotel - the central production hotel for the Dylan concert tribute. Other performers walked by and did not talk to her. "I wish she would just leave," said AC/DC singer Brian Johnson, sitting 10 feet away. "And she'd better watch it. The IRA doesn't like what she's doing lately and somebody may bump her off." Clearly, O'Connor has struck some raw nerves. She also just made a strange career move by releasing an album of orchestral standards, Am I Not Your Girl? which is plummeting on the charts. Ironically, it's just the kind of music that would appeal to older Sinatra-type fans who have now turned their backs on her.