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Concert reviews Music

Diamond Rings

DIAMOND RINGS at Virgin Mobile Mod Club, Thursday, November 29. Rating: NNNN


A big part of the appeal of John O’Regan’s early recordings as Diamond Rings was the almost fragile vulnerability of his lo-fi attempts to approximate glossy pop music in his bedroom. His most recent album Free Dimensional dispenses with that tentative DIY approach to fully embrace studio gloss and big hooks, but that intimate rawness was sometimes lacking. Seeing O’Regan performing those same songs live though suggests that Free Dimensional will be later seen as a transitional album, with Diamond Rings eventually emerging as a glamorous futuristic rock star rather than a quirky flamboyant dance-pop singer.

With a full band behind him and the electric guitars cranked up, songs from both albums take on a new character that’s both more confident than his earlier work, but also less cooly detached than Free Dimensional suggests. The band setup works much better visually than his old solo act as well. The matching band uniforms make his various costumes (we counted at least four outfits) stand out, and the extra bodies onstage provide an effective frame for his stage moves and dancing. It still feels like an adult trying to approximate a child’s vision of a pop star, but now you don’t have to blur your eyes as much to share that vision.

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