Do you know Dolores O'Riordan?

(Preparing to date myself...)

I don't know how many of you might remember the 1990s band, "The Cranberries". I hearted the Cranberries. I was sad that they didn't have more staying power. Phil Collins lasts twenty freakin' years, but The Cranberries go the way of The Proclaimers.

Well, I don't know if I'd walk 500 miles to go see the Cranberries, but I did take two trains to go catch Dolores O'Riordan, the lead singer of the Cranberries, perform at Boston's Avalon on Monday night. Nothing says, "Shit, this is going to be one crazy night where I drink lots of alcohol and punk out to 90s pop music and wake up the next morning not remembering who I went to see" like a concert on a Monday night.

But the concert was awesome. In Irish, that would be bloody awesome. Sure, the opening act was like mixing Emmylou Harris with Allison Kraus with Sugarland, and topping it off with a box of All-Bran (in other words, it was boring), but Dolores (to quote Randy Jackson) "blew it out the box." I love concerts where (1) the opening song is something that gets everyone fired up, (2) the songs that nobody knows sound good and fresh and somewhat familiar, even if you haven't heard them before, and (3) the concert ends with something classic that gets everyone riled up again.

Dolores hit all three. She opened up with "Zombie," which is like my favorite Cranberries song. I've always enjoyed the way she grunted "ZAWMBIE," and hundreds of people grunting in sync with her was cool. It was also a good song to get everyone pumped up. The rest of the night I just felt like grunting "ZOMBIE" at random people. I've also been on a zombie kick lately, but I digress.

The rest of her set was mostly stuff from her new album, "Are you Listening?", which I hadn't really heard before, except for a song called Ordinary Day that Dolores wrote for one of her daughters. I like the song, but subtract points for dedicating a song to your children. I find that hokey. But I'm a heartless bastard when it comes to kids. In a previous life I was probably some creature that ate its young.

But there was some good stuff from her new album that I'll be sure to check out. I particularly liked "When We Were Young" and "Loser."

The best was the end, which closed with three of my favorite Cranberries songs, "Just my Imagination" (sounds like an Irish 10,000 Maniacs song), "Linger," and "Dreams," which was especially good. It had the vibe of Joan Jett & the Blackhearts meets Blondie meets 4-Non Blondes. In other words, 90s ecstasy.

Anyway, for a review of the show from boston.com, click here. For Dolores' own Web site, click here. And for a recipe for Fried Bananas, click here.