An Emotional Fish Needs to Cut Some Bait

I’ve always felt that a great untapped source for band names is the dictionary, specifically the captions that go with the illustrations. Just flip through the Webster’s New World edition, stop at nearly any drawing, and instantly you’ve got such potentially hit-bound names as Uvula, Types of Hoe, Flying Buttresses, Stomach of a Ruminant, Crenelation and Reamer.

Any of those might be more serviceable than An Emotional Fish, the moniker of an Irish quartet which appeared at the Coach House Saturday evening, particularly when the group might more accurately be named U3.

Like fellow performers in Irishfolk U2, Emotional Fish singer Gerard Whelan, guitarist David Frew, bassist Enda Wyatt and drummer Martin Murphy are all very earnest young men , yes indeed. Unlike at least the early U2, however, An Emotional Fish seems so intent on getting its audience caught up in what it’s doing that it scarcely has time to do anything worth getting caught up in.

From the moment the group came onstage--to a tape of whale songs and glitzy lights--Whelan was exhorting the audience to move and dance, griping about the Coach House daring to put tables and chairs on the floor as if it was tantamount to taxation without representation. Meanwhile, the music he was trying to move people with had all been heard before, both often and better.

Like Bono’s band and the countless others in its wake, this group is big on making an atmospheric shimmer and clang with basic rhythm patterns overlaid with droning, chiming guitar and yelp ‘n’ growl vocals.

Whelan’s variation on this was to repeat his songs’ simplistic phrases in the sort of inarticulate gargle which, when it occurs in horror films, generally is followed by someone screaming, “My God, they’ve cut out his tongue!” In its more lucid moments, his voice conveyed the forced hysteria of the “Ballroom Blitz” era Sweet.

There were a few solid moments in the 16-song, 75-minute set, notably the anthemic “All I Am” and “Celebrate,” a catchy little bit of KROQ fodder. Most of the songs, though, being largely bereft of melodic or harmonic motion, without the stamp of personality and with nothing new to offer, only reminded that while rock music may still be alive, so is plankton.

Quite early in the set Whelan plunged into the audience, returning to the stage with a chair, which he proceeded to stand on as he sang “That Demon Jive.” Whenever Bono does something similar in concert, it is regarded as some kind of huge resonant statement, as opposed to when your Uncle Sven does the same at a wedding reception and everyone just thinks he’s a big jerk. Meanwhile Whelan, once on the chair, seemed at a loss for what to do there, except maybe get his lank hair singed by the stage lights.

No matter. Soon he again was bounding through the crowd, running on tables, spraying drinks at the audience and, in one extreme effort to elicit a response, even pulling a chair out from under a customer, sending the fellow sprawling. Perhaps his one effective idea of the evening was to carry off one of the front tables and its chairs, both creating a mini-dance floor and suggesting he might have a promising future with Bekins if this band thing doesn’t work out.

By the end of the show, Whelan did manage to get most of the audience on its feet. Turnabout being fair play, he then had the band all sit for a closing rendition of Lou Reed’s “Rock and Roll,” performed first in a slow, country-ish style and then rocked up into a wan reflection of Reed’s original version.