The Boston Globe May 4, 1990, Friday, City Edition O'Connor gives a soulful show; The Orpheum through tonight, with Hugh Harris By Steve Morse, Globe Staff The torrent of emotion known as Sinead O'Connor simply can't be stopped. Her album "I Do Not Want What I Haven't Got" has sold 5 million copies in barely a month, making it No. 1 in most European countries, as well as the United States. Her soulfully eerie, octave-jumping voice is touching listeners in ways that most pop music hasn't for a long, long while. O'Connor, only 23, arrived at the Orpheum last night as the hottest Irish export since the band U2. Such was the loyalty of some fans - call them Sinead wanna-bes - that they had even cut their hair to a fine stubble to emulate her radically stark look. Yet while O'Connor may look surreal, she taps universal feelings in her songs. She doesn't just hover around the subject of love, she dives into it like an exploding bomb. Rarely has any singer moved so dramatically from a cooing whisper to a primal scream - and back again. From bittersweet acoustic ballads to electronic dance music and sawtooth hard rock, she unveiled a multi-edged show, complete with a multi-media assault of slides, abstract graphics and flaming red lights, that took the crowd from a coffeehouse environment to a blazing uptown dance club. There were no phony formulas, either. Everything had a startling originality that kept you in surprise the entire 90 minutes. She was otherworldly one minute, singing tender, faraway romantic lines and flapping her arms like a lost, wounded bird. But the next minute, she'd be in your face, spitting out lines with a caustic venom that induced shudders, especially on the breakup song, "Last Days of Our Acquaintance," with its jagged, growling climax: "We'll meet later to finalize the details." Amid gusts of smoke and silhouetted lighting, she came out looking like a parochial schoolgirl on acid. She wore a red, full-length habit, a red gauzy hood (when she took it off to reveal her shaven head, the crowd went bonkers) and a dangling crucifix. She started with the incantatory "Feels So Different," about the passing of time, as she floated around stage as though tripping through another galaxy. But she was still in complete control. She shifted moods with the driving rocker "Emperor's New Clothes," playing a 12-string acoustic guitar while her five-piece band unleashed a thunderous sound propeled by Dean Garcia's fretless bass, two synthesizer keyboardists, the sturdily riffing lead guitarist Marco Pirroni and drummer Dave Ruffy. (O'Connor's husband, John Reynolds, played drums on her album, but not in her touring band. He now has his own band in England called Max.) O'Connor had no trouble with full-bodied rock 'n' roll - "Mandinka" and "Jerusalem" being two prime examples. And she had no problem mixing genres, such as the folk--meets-hiphop fusion of the keening "Stretched on Your Grave," in which she also showed her Irish grace-note singing and did an Irish stepdance to conclude it. But the night's most compelling moments came on ballads, when her malleable voice put on a virtuoso display. "Black Boys on Mopeds" was the most stirring, showing her political protest side. Playing solo acoustic, she quietly attacked England's Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher for not pursuing an investigation into how police ran down a black boy in London. "These are dangerous days - to say what you feel is to make your own grave," sang O'Connor so eloquently that you could hear a pin drop in the crowd. Two-thirds through the show, she did her No. 1 single, the Prince-penned "Nothing Compares 2U," and received one of many standing ovations. Although she kept up a serious front most of the night (and said almost nothing to the crowd), she finally showed her gratitude at the end. She cracked a smile and, overcome, buried her face in her hands and humbly walked off. Opening act Hugh Harris was another riveting performer. The dreadlocked singer, whose eclectic rock 'n' soul was reminiscent of Garland Jeffreys, also left to well-deserved acclaim.