Chris Stout Janick Martin
The Deadly Duos: Matheu Watson and Anna Sweeney, Allan MacDonald and Griogair Labhruidh
The National Piping Centre • January 21, 2012. IT was as though the 18 years of Celtic Connec- tions hadn’t happened. No slick intros or master of ceremony for fiddler Anna Sweeney and guitarist Matheu Watson. Simply a stroll through the audience, throw a jacket over the back of the chair and launch into some tunes — but what fine tunes they were. Anna’s expressive fid- dle playing was a delight from start to finish across everything from slow airs to jigs and reels and with Matheu adding depth and colour with his supportive guitar playing, this was as a good a start to a night as you could wish for. Anna has a CD coming out soon, definitely one to seek out.
Allan MacDonald and Griogair Labhruidh made Anna and Matheu’s entrance look positively military as they shambled on to the stage with pipes still in their cases. Once under way, there remained a slightly chaotic edge to the duo with neither entirely sure what was next up or indeed in some cases what setting was to be played. Still, in the intimate environs of The National Piping Centre such things are forgiven and there was much good music to be heard with Griogair playing uilleann pipes, Allan Border pipes and both swapping with consummate ease to whistles or even the jaw harp in Allan’s case. Both have strong and distinctive voices that they lend to the old Gaelic songs of Argyll and the surrounding districts with power and passion. An older setting of Willie Lawrie’s Captain Carswell and Mrs MacDonald of Dunach played in more of a quickstep style provided one of the highlights of the night. l CHRIS MACKENZIE
The Deadly Duos: John McSherry and Donal O’Connor, Erwan Hamon and Janick Martin
The National Piping Centre • January 22, 2012 THE Breton Deadly Duo of Erwan Hamon and Janick Martin showcased Erwan on bombard and wooden flute and Janick on accordion, perform- ing what they call ‘liberated Breton music’. They played arrangements with jazz influences and sets which moved between simple and compound
time. There was a large French contingent at the front of the stage and for the entire first half, the musicians interacted with the audience in French, leaving those at the back lost in translation.
Erwan was technically excellent and they played a terrific set of ‘gavotte’ dance tunes. At the end of their set, the pair announced that it was their 20th anniversary playing together and this wasn’t really a surprise considering how sensitively they played and complimented each other. John McSherry and Donal O’Connor started the second half off with a set of jigs and some reels. John’s command of the regulators while playing at breakneck speed was awesome and he switched effortlessly between pipes and whistles throughout the gig. Fiddle player Donal played a tune on his own titled Rush and Rove On, written for his grandmother who taught him to play the fiddle.
The duo then invited guitarist Tony Byrne — a phenomenal player from Tallaght, a suburb of Dublin where St Laurence O’Toole practice, to join them on stage for the last couple of numbers, which resulted in quite a few endorsing hoots from the Canadian con- tingent at my table. John and Donal are a fantastic and entertaining duo and I am already looking forward to the next time I can see them play live. l ANDREA BOYD
The Deadly Duos: Stewart Hardy and Frank McLaughlin, Finlay MacDonald and Chris Stout
The National Piping Centre • January 25, 2012 NORTHUMBRIAN fiddler Stewart Hardy and Scots guitarist Frank McLaughlin were first up and they impressed with well-played tunes that were an entertaining mix of self-penned (mainly by Stewart) and traditional. Of the traditional, tunes by Northumbrian fiddler, James Hill, featured heavily although some more recent additions to the canon were included such as Dr Angus MacDonald’s classy Chloe’s Passion, a tune that gave Frank a chance to demonstrate his skills on the smallpipes. Following Frank and Stewart was the irrepressible
pairing of Finlay MacDonald and Chris Stout. It was evident from the first seconds of their set that Chris and Finlay have transcended the ‘two blokes just playing some tunes together’ phase and developed
their playing to the point where pipes and fiddle are completely united into one joyous raucous sound. It didn’t matter how fast the tunes got, and some
got very fast indeed, the pipes and fiddle were as one. The unity didn’t crack when Finlay switched to low whistle or when Mick Bryan on guitar added his energy to the mix.
Good tunes were the order of the night with both Finlay and Chris providing material along with a smat- tering of Breton and Shetland tunes and of course tunes by the likes of Pipe Major Donald MacLeod and Gordon Duncan. This was classy, classy entertainment and a delight from the first bars of the The 8th Argylls Crossing The River Po to the closing notes of Loch MacLeod. l CHRIS MACKENZIE
KAN with Guidewires
The Arches • January 27, 2012 OPENING the evening were an English folk band called Bard, who were perhaps a bit sombre contrasted against the mood that was building at the arches for Kan.
Guidewires, a powerhouse of Irish instrumental- ists who have fused various European folk styles in their arrangements, took to the stage with a tradi- tional line-up of whistles, uilleann pipes, concertina and guitar.
I had been listening to some of their music on Myspace in the days before the gig and was thoroughly looking forward to their live set, but felt it fell a bit flat on the night. It was all very good but the band just seemed to play it cautiously and the tempos weren’t really engag- ing the audience. It also didn’t help that the standing venue put about 50 chairs down in front of the stage, which created a real disconnect between the standing audience and the musicians on stage. I saw Kan at Stereo in Glasgow last spring and they were absolutely electrifying; again here, I thought there was a bit of a disconnect between the band and audience on the night. Kan feature the unparalleled talents of Brian Finnegan of former Flook fame and Aidan O’Rourke, a member of the phenomenal Lau. They are both musi- cians who have pushed the boundaries of ‘traditional’ music in all of their projects and Kan are no exception but were missing their electricity. l ANDREA BOYD
PIPING TODAY • 25
All photos: John Slavin@Designfolk Ltd FESTIVAL
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