87 f
ANDY IRVINE & FRIENDS Vicar Street, Dublin
Andy Irvine 70? Can’t be true, surely? This memorable birthday celebration concert in Dublin could have fooled anyone into not believing it. However here is a man who spans the 20th and 21st Centuries, and who for the last 50 years has put Irish music, tradi- tional and contemporary, way up into the foreground of folk music.
On Saturday 16th June, a full house was treated to a journey through those years marking his compositions, musicianship and camaraderie with fellow musicians.
Andy has also been responsible for open- ing ears to music from far off places – most recently creating the band Mozaik which has brought together music from Ireland, Eastern Europe and America. However this night opened with a reunion of Sweeney’s Men – Andy, Johnny Moynihan and Terry Woods. They were like a comfortable old jumper, unravelling a bit at the edges but still warm and beloved. Andy held the audience enthralled as he recalled his early brush with romance in The West Coast Of Clare. They then tripped through several old favourites, relaxed and happy. As in the days of the origi- nal folk groups, the audience was challenged into responding, and did join in with their humour and engagement. A few even took up the challenge of Rattlin’ Roarin’ Willie. Terry’s voice has, alas, roughened much with time, but Waxie’s Dargle didn’t mind this.
As Johnny and Terry left, waving in acknowledgement of the audience’s cheers, we moved on to another time and other places.
The members of Mozaik are Dónal
Lunny, Bruce Molsky, Nikola Parov, Rens van der Zalm and Andy Irvine. 40 years of wan- dering, listening, writing and development as a musician has enabled Andy to attract four world class musicians and occasional guests to form this unique band. I suspect some of his older Irish fans may not have stepped into this part of Andy’s world before. If so, they were introduced to it with a beautiful tender ballad based on an Eastern European tune, followed by a hora which had the welcome effect of silencing the ardent fans who had, so far unsuccessfully, been trying to clap along – 17/8 challenges most people, unless they play like Bruce, who picked it up, and transported it across the Atlantic into the American and Yiddish repertoire. Mozaik’s set list crosses continents and seas, and indeed tonight two Aussie brothers with Greek heritage arrived to join in with the band. A Macedonian finale brought the first half to a true mosaic finish.
At the opening of the second half, Andy welcomed on Paul Brady, much to the audi- ence’s delight. He and Andy revisited their time together, which I suspect was quite an emotional experience for them both, indeed they both lost their words unexpectedly in separate songs.
After this, first Dónal and then Paddy Glackin slipped onto the set, and the cry went up “Where’s Liam?”. He was found (sitting on the stairs he claimed), Paul retreated, and there we were with Andy’s latest ‘trad band’ LAPD – Liam O’Flynn, Andy Irvine, Paddy Glackin and Dónal Lunny They made great music with several well known old favourites in tight arrangements, and of course they rode Stewball to victory yet again.
Jaipur Kawa Brass Band at Bristol Zoo, just before that approaching dinosaur ate the audience.
As puppet master, Andy had pulled all the strings and taken us through his musical journey of 50 years. It was as though we had been all crammed into a pub, taking in a unique session which Andy brought to a close as he sang, again, about the beautiful county of Clare – “My Heart’s tonight in Ireland in the sweet County Clare.”
After the compulsory encores, a sponta- neous outbreak of Happy Birthday was sung by over 1000 voices, leaving Andy in no doubt of the place he holds in the hearts of a Dublin audience.
Jean Bechhofer
WOMAD @ BRISTOL ZOO Clifton, Bristol
The last time I was able to walk to a festival from my home, it was along a traffic polluted North London thoroughfare to one of those Fleadhs in Finsbury Park run by the Vince Power empire. At the gates, small children were reduced to tears as their family picnic baskets were emptied into a skip by security thugs, and a solitary Christy Moore in the gloom of the stage was nearly invisible behind a line of more of the same oafish bouncers in dayglo jackets stood shoulder to shoulder, presumably to prevent the stage invasion expected at any moment.
Tonight, I strolled through leafy Clifton to find a cheery lady with a clipboard, and a tootling Jaipur Kawa Brass Band welcoming the happy families as they strolled into Bristol Zoo. They were soon setting up tables and blankets on the lawn, most of which seemed to be loaded with unfeasibly large cream cakes. And when Spiro kicked off the proceed- ings under a gazebo, the sole security barrier preventing the gentlefolk of Bristol from tear- ing off the band’s clothing was a single length of rope upon which was hung a small, polite sign which you half expected to say “please don’t feed the animals” but in fact bore the reasonable request “please don’t cross the barrier.” And you know what? Nobody did.
I hadn’t been to Bristol Zoo since I was around six, when I got to ride on the ele- phant. No elephants in sight now, though you occasionally get to jump out of your skin when an animatronic dinosaur roars at you from the undergowth. The actual flesh and blood animals were far less demonstrative, but then it was a bit of a damp and chilly evening. Pissed-off looking lemurs and assort- ed monkeylife huddled with their backs to us, meerkats looked resigned, a couple of grumpy tapirs paced their enclosure, pen- guins hunkered down, giant tortoises were parked for the night and most things reptil- ian were doing a good impression of having had a recent trip to the taxidermist.
The audience were having a far better time of it, being native species and used to indignities like the occasional shower. It’s such a lovely location that you could easily imagine it being gorgeous on a balmy summer evening like we used to get before the Tories brought the bad weather. And even tonight it was great, with scents of garden blooms min- gling with the usual festival aromas.
The six act, five hour bill kicked off with the aforementioned Jaipur Kawa band, fol- lowed by Bristol’s own and always excellent Spiro with their dense English minimalism. Switching between the two stages involved short saunters between greeny glades and pools: we also got energetic dancing and per- cussion from Guinea’s Ballet Nimba, some a capella R&B from the Boxettes (who I’d assumed from their name to be the typing pool from Womad’s Wiltshire headquarters but it turned out the name referred to beat- boxing rather than anything geographical), and the sweet Bulgarian harmonies of Lon- don-based Perunika Trio. It all concluded with a crowd-pleasing set from Natty Bo and his Ska Cubano chums.
With Womad’s usual family-friendly val- ues and even a few workshops, it has every- thing for an idyllic summer evening out – just as soon as there’s another election and we get the sun back.
Ian Anderson
Photo: Ian Anderson
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92 |
Page 93 |
Page 94 |
Page 95 |
Page 96 |
Page 97 |
Page 98 |
Page 99 |
Page 100