Cranberries, live in Athens in 2010

Most people who read my blog are probably familiar with the reviews of gigs I went to 10 years ago. In fact my last post was one that falls into that category. However, this is a review of a gig I went to 8 years ago. The reason I chose to revisit it now was Dolores's (the lead singer of Cranberries) untimely departure earlier this year.
So, 8 years ago (on July 14 2010), the Cranberries were in Athens and I decided to go and see them.

I arrived at the theatre at the last minute and managed to buy one of the 3 remaining tickets. The theatre was filled to capacity, in fact I suspect that it was filled beyond its capacity, but there were quite a few places reserved for "VIP" guests. Most of these seats were probably allocated free to executives of a mobile telephony company which was one of the sponsors of this event. As these people probably didn't know who the Cranberries were, the seats were regrettably left empty.

As far as the gig was concerned, it was pretty much a "Greatest Hits" affair plus a few tracks from Dolores's solo album. And this is why it was, in my opinion, successful. It was one of a handful of times when I came back from a gig where the band had played all the songs I wanted to hear. (In my case these were "Linger", "Zombie", "Dreams" and "Ode To My Family". Everything else was a bonus for me.)

Of course I heard some complaints from other people in the audience like "they didn't play No Need To Argue" which I heard somebody say as we were leaving the theatre. Of course, if we start talking about album tracks I could also mention that I would like Bruce Springsteen to play "Man's Job" during one of his concerts that I regularly attend, but I don't think that this is very likely to happen. Everybody was expecting "Zombie" (they played this as the last song before the encore), while I was expecting "Dreams" (they played this as the last song of the considerably lengthy encore.)

SETLIST:
01. Analyse
02. Animal Instinct
03. How
04. Dreaming My Dreams
05. Linger
06. Wanted
07. Just My Imagination
08. When You're Gone
09. Switch Off the Moment (Dolores O’Riordan song)
10. Desperate Andy
11. Time Is Ticking Out
12. I Can't Be With You
13. Ode to My Family
14. Free to Decide
15. Salvation
16. Ridiculous Thoughts
17. Zombie
Encore:
18. Shattered
19. Still Can't...
20. Promises
21. Dreams