The Independent (London)
April 27, 1990, Friday

Love lies bleeding; Jim White on Sinead O'Connor at Hammersmith

By JIM WHITE

   The first shock was the hair. Two spotlights found a frail figure who
appeared to have a full head of red, shoulder-length locks. You knew it must be
Sinead O'Connor because she was singing a moody song about a failed
relationship. But what was this perched on top of her head? The answer came when
pale purple lighting revealed Sinead whipping back her plain red dress's hood to
disclose, to much relieved applause, that Steve Bull crew cut. ''Cover your
arse, Sinead'', someone shouted. Luckily she didn't hear.

   The fake hair joke was the first of a number of stage artifices unexpected
from an artist who has spent most of her career side- stepping gimmicks, and
humour. There was the busy light show, the Greek God imagery projected on to the
back-cloth, and, most peculiarly, the tape recorder wheeled out to accompany a
number about, you've guessed it, a failed relationship. Why her band was not
allowed to play this remained unclear, as it seemed more than competent during
the rest of the set. The effect, with the electronic beat box pumping away
behind a voice which would not be out of place in the Cambridge Folk Festival,
was Public Enemy meets Steeleye Span; a bizarre coalition exacerbated when she
hitched up her skirts and performed a bare- foot jig.

   Sinead's voice, heard to full effect on ''Nothing Compares 2U'', Prince's
sublime song which she has taken to the top of the charts on both sides of the
Atlantic, is equally at home with the soft bits (lament to lost love) and the
loud shouting bits (anger at lost love's infidelity). Sadly the mix lost her
whenever the band played up during the revenge bits, so the finest passages were
when she accompanied herself on an acoustic guitar, without any artificial
additives.

   These passages were very good indeed. Lyrics like ''I never said I was
tough'' and ''Why can't you just leave me be'' were delivered with an intensity
that suggests her emotional life is not a tranquil one. Her hands strained at
her side to squeeze yet more passion, her grimace never broken by sentimental
niceties like a smile, her voice cracking with the tension of it all. The only
time she spoke, other than mumbled thanks which could either have been
deferential or stroppy, was to announce that one song was ''especially for all
the women''. It began ''You don't love me anymore'', but any lyric which might
identify why it was singled out was lost when the band joined in for the loud
bit.

   It is not fair to imply that Sinead sings only about being let down by
lovers. ''Black Boys on Mopeds'', centred on a real incident of police
brutality, is about being let down politically. It concludes that she is taking
her son away from England because she doesn't want him to learn about grieving.
Presumably, then, she has yet to introduce him to her live performances, which
are about nothing else. This one's encore, a beautiful lament, concluded with a
shout: ''Makes no difference what you say, you're still a f---ing liar''.