Dolores O’Riordan of The Cranberries died today at the age of 46. No real details at this point, but what does it matter anyhow?
A few thoughts are going through my mind, memories mostly.
- I have very vivid memories of listening to ‘Dreams’ on the dock at Angele’s house in Moonbeam, along with Carol.
- I wasn’t into music until the mid-90s and that was the height of the Cranberries power over our brain, our ears and our heart. I remember hearing their music at friend’s houses, at parties…wherever you went, it was on.
- I remember being in Carol’s basement trying to play guitar and I’m pretty sure I was trying to learn ‘Dreams’ on guitar. Even now I probably would have a hard time with the picking pattern!
- I remember seeing them at the Molson Amphitheatre in 1999. Man, we had horrible seats, but it was still a great show. I remember it was back in the day of when I would write down the songs of the setlist as they were playing…so I always brought a piece of paper and a pen with me. That didn’t last too long. Kids reading this are probably asking “Why didn’t you just write it in a note section on your phone?”
- I also remember Collective Soul opening up for them and they were touring their Dosage album. MAN, what a killer tour.
- I remember the shock of the ending of ‘I Just Shot John Lennon’. Quite surprising the first time you hear that song.
- To The Faithful Departed is still my favourite Cranberries album. They just brought a level of aggressiveness which was typical of most stuff coming out of the 90s.
- I remember trying to get tickets to see them in Montreal last year. I didn’t manage to but I just found a few weeks ago that the tour had ended up being cancelled due to Dolores having back problems.
- Will my kid ever have musicians that have an incredible force such as the Cranberries? I’m not sure! I feel that many musicians don’t have a lot of staying power these days.
- Wow, she was only 46 years old? That’s only six years older than I am! When I was younger, even if you would have said to 15 year old me that Dolores was 21 years old, I would have thought that was so far in the future that I couldn’t even fathom being that old. Now? Damn, 6 years isn’t that far away!
RIP Dolores.
Bonus: I dug up the greatest photos of all time from the August 27, 1999 concert I was at. Collective Soul opened, Cranberries closed and as you can tell by the photos, we had the greatest seats in the house.
Someone should get me a portal gun so I can go back in time and tell myself not to waste my film on this memory!