Well, once upon a time. Nowadays you need to think Winter Festival - a wee bit of folk music and every other genre of music you can think of lumped in. If there is even a tenuous connection with Scots, Irish, Gaels, so much the better, but really it doesn't matter. Diversity is good, full houses are better. So we have Mongolian, Bulgarian, English, African musicians, loads of Americans in loads of guises, every type of music.
I spent some time at the festival and saw a few bands; Woody Pines and Petunia and the Vipers at the Old Fruitmarket, Duncan Chisholm at the Kelvingrove Art Gallery, the Teetotallers at the Piping Centre, Old Crow Medicine Show at the Barrowlands and Little Feat at the ABC. I like to go to different types of music and different venues. What struck me was how each performer played in their venue and what atmosphere they created.
Woody Pines and Petunia and the Vipers at the Old Fruitmarket was a strange marriage. The Old Fruimarket is a lovely barn of a place, a high stage and cabaret seating. I love it when big loud bands play there (Salsa Celtica, Shooglenifty) but both these Americana bands' music struggled to fill the dead air. I sat at the back and the mix was all wrong, indistinct when it needed to be sharp, too quiet when detail was needed. Both good bands but in the wrong place.
Duncan Chisholm played with a band, a narrator, a string section and horns. He featured instrumental music from his Strathglass Trilogy (see previous blog). It sounded brilliant; intense and interesting, great textures and fine playing. The support band, the Pride of New York, sounded good as well. Unless someone tried to speak. Then the mighty space and reverb of the Kelvingrove gobbled by the words and spat them out, making gibberish of jokes and comments. But the music was grand and that's all that mattered. Security guards roamed the halls off the performance area, checking for light-fingered opportunists with a Dali or a spitfire in their bags. A great venue.
The Teetotallers are Irish, a trio of great players (Kevin Crawford, Martin Haynes and John Doyle) and they were the perfect match for the Piping Centre; close, complicated, comfortable music with a healthy dose of craic.
They flew in, shook hands, played music and flew out. International musical journeymen of the highest calibre but they played their tunes, lifted my heart and left a smile on my face.
I got caught out when I went into the Barrowlands; anticipating the metal detector I'd removed by penknife from my jacket, only to find they'd been removed. Welcome to the 21st Century (although they still went through womens' handbags, maybe they're just nosey). The Old Crow Medicine Show were superb, very professional and energetic and eager to please, maybe one of the best stringbands around. Here they came across as American Pogues, suitably loud to suit the venue but maybe too loud to allow any subtlety in the music. Rock me mama like a south-bound train. I'd like to hear them in a small place (but maybe it's too late now).
Little Feat at the ABC was a pilgrimage. I've followed Little Feat since I was 18, buying a copy of Sailin' Shoes when I was signing on at the Employment Office in Cambuslang. I have a lot of Little Feat albums. I loved Lowell George and I have also liked all the versions of the band since he died. Nowadays they are a Jam Band. The original songs are filleted and stuffed with instrumental "stuff", sing the first verse, solo / solo / solo and nothing lasts less than 20 minutes. They are loud, very loud. The singing isn't as good as I'd want but they are all getting on in years, suffering ill-health, and I will go and see them every time they play where I can get to. Unlike OCMS, Little Feat need to be loud, and long winded, and a bit scatty.
Happy celtic connections. Let's do it again next year.
