Battlefield Band Concert Review, Dunedin

It was not without trepidation that I waited for the doors to open at the Regent Theatre at 7pm. I tried to suppress an initial flush of optimism as a few people fronted up right away and headed for the ticket counter. I allowed myself a small increase in positivity as an orderly queue of twenty or thirty assembled at the auditorium door. By the time those doors opened and the bow-tied and suited ushers were tearing tabs off tickets, I was something approaching elated. This was a big financial undertaking for the club and it was looking like any bath we might take would at least be a warm one.

A healthy Thursday-night cohort of about 450 people settled in and Lindsey Shields cut a dapper figure as she strolled into the limelight to welcome everybody and introduce the support act, Ben the Hoose. Bob and Kenny played a sterling set, Kenny’s Scottish fiddle styles were sublime and Bob delivered his self-penned songs in what proved to be the pick of the voices this night. His warm tones rang around the Victorian alabaster and shut the Scottish cold out. It was pleasing to see a New Zealand act every bit the equal of the international act to follow.

And follow they did. The first half of the Battlefield Band concert seem to set them all up individually, featuring each in turn playing to their strengths: a rugged set of pipe tunes from Mike Katz, an inspired set of strathspeys and reels from Alisdair White who has just released a solo album (“The White Album” – no mention of The Beatles) and songs from Sean O’Donnell (the Tom Waites Shiver Me Timbers being a particular favourite) and band kaumatua, Alan Reid. Reid took great delight in the theatre’s Yamaha grand piano which enabled him to move away from his twin keyboards for a more traditional Scottish accompaniment.

In the second half the band delivered en force tunes and songs that made the wee hairs stand up. The unison playing of pipes and fiddle were perfect to the finest ornament – it is only in a sound-reinforced concert or studio recording that these two instruments could be equal in volume, so it is pleasing to be able to experience the synergy of both. And as for the sound, while for the most part perfectly balanced, I did find the overly lavish reverb left a harsh tail on the vocals, fiddle and whistles which I found quite distracting.

All in all though, it was the most pleasing way to spend one of the coldest Dunedin nights for a while.

Grada Concert Review

Sean Manning reviews the Grada concert, April 28th at the Dunedin Railway Station.

Now I have to say that Grada are a very good-looking band. Structurally similar To Lunasa – guitar and bass on either side holding the thing together and driving the music along, with the tune players, and in this case the singer, in the middle. They are young, energetic, and seem to really enjoy what they do together. There were no moments of ennui, no difficult dynamics. Even after god knows how many almost identical concerts, they seemed to be really having a good time. They told an illustrative story, how on their only day off in an Australian tour, which happened to be in Bondi, they stayed at home to rehearse new material.

They also seemed to be genuinely friendly. After the concert I went up to see what kind of guitars Gerry Paul was playing – he was off somewhere talking to someone else – and the fluter, Alan Doherty, merrily invited me to have a go with them. When their owner returned he was even more encouraging.

(For the guitar players, mostly he played a McIlroy, made in County Antrim by a refugee from George Lowden’s guitar factory, where they make instruments with a major reputation among folk musicians – Donal Hennessey of Lunasa plays one. Another graduate of the same school, Sam Irwin, made one of my guitars. The other one was a 1960-something Martin, a lovely little parlour guitar with tremendous intonation.)

With Gerry Paul crouching over his instrument on the right and Andrew Laking bending across his stand-up bass on the left, both of them New Zealanders, the music was pushed along – they don’t do much in the way of slow tunes. At times it was too complex for me, I wanted to yell, ‘hang on a bit, what happened there? Do that bit again.’ But they were already on to the next, equally complex measure. I can’t really complain, I found the whole concert completely engaging, which is remarkable, coming from this old grump, who can find something boring or just wrong with almost anything. As the concert developed, the layers of the music became plainer – I suppose they were teaching me to listen.

What they do has some roots in Irish diddley-aiddley music, but while superficially similar groups like Lunasa, Danu or Solas remain with the traditional, albeit in a modernized form, What Grada do turns it into pop, jazz and poetry. Nicola Joyce’s singing was not an old-fashioned traditional voice. She delivered the songs with passion and lyricism. An old-fashioned critic might carp that the words were indistinct, something that usually irritates me, but even that was OK, probably more a result of the venue. On their CD, I discovered later, the words are clear.

On either side they were flanked by two stunning instrumentalists – Alan Doherty of flutes and Colin Farrell on fiddle, both also playing whistles on occasion. These are both clearly capable of playing in a traditional style, but apparently impatient with that, their harmonies and solos owed much to improvisation and sounded at times more like jazz.

Favourite moments? Well, the encore for a start (so to speak). They did two things. First, Nicola Joyce and Gerry Paul returned to the stage and did the only reasonably slow thing of the evening – Suzanne Vega’s ‘The Soldier and the Queen’. Not an easy song, it was breathtaking. Then the whole group did something very fast that ended in a chaotically deliberate and high-spirited cacophony. But the best for me was as much visible as auditory. There was a duet on identical low whistles from Doherty and Farrell. Both dressed in black, they framed the singer who sat in the middle playing bodhron, and were framed in their turn by Paul and Laking. To add to the effect, Laking, left-handed on the right, played with his right hand above the left on the whistle, and Doherty, on the left, had his left hand on top. They are the most symmetrical band I’ve ever seen, and they didn’t even know it. When I told Gerry Paul about it afterwards, he seemed bemused.

Canterbury Festival

Review by Bernadette:

My review of the Easter folk festival held at Waipara will concentrate on the aspects of the festival that I didn’t expect. Guests like Chris While and Enda Kenny are known quantities so it is pointless for me to spend time discussing their performances.

The first pleasant surprise at the festival this year was the weather. The forecast horrendous and after freezing last year, I went with every snuggly garment I have, along with extra quilts and a wheatbag (they do have a microwave available for campers) for night time. However, only Saturday was wet and the rest of the time the sun shone and I don’t think overnight temperatures got anywhere near zero!

Several guests stood out for me. Lindsay Martin’s violin playing and accompaniment is always a pleasure to hear but this year he shone on the mandolin. He is not only a skillful player but he seems to know just how to fill in the spaces without taking over the performance. For those of you who have never been to the Canterbury Fest, they have created a clever idea of having a ‘blind date’ concert where anyone who is attending the festival who wishes to perform, puts their name into a box, including all the guests, and the names are drawn out to go into groups. These people then get together and create a number to perform in a special concert on the last day of the festival. It is always great fun and sometimes some amazing acts appear. This year, Lindsay obviously decided to be the ‘blind date’ and he dressed up beautifully with a blond wig, tasteful makeup and a ‘stunning’ outfit. He looked amazing and you could see that he was playing some rousing mandolin breaks but it was a real shame that something was wrong within the sound system and he could not be heard more than one row away from the stage. The other act in this concert that I loved was Enda’s group who did a great précis of The Sound of Music.

Another guest that I particularly enjoyed was Lindon Puffin. From beginning to end of his concert he hardly stopped talking and he was very funny. His rendition of ‘Baker Street’ on the kazoo was inspirational. Add to silliness, a great voice, plenty of stage experience and tons of ‘street cred’ and you get some idea of what he was like. Often people who are not from the folk world feel out of place and have no idea of how to act at festivals but he came along to sessions and joined in where he thought he could without taking over or opting out.

I didn’t get the see Adrian the Clown do his clown act but as a compere he was an inspired choice. He is obviously a ‘street performer’ with lots of clever tricks to get people involved and they worked amazingly with a concert audience – some good ideas for the rest of us to steal.

The President’s choice this year was also a departure from the norm and Russell asked ‘Dunedin’ to be the guest. So a jam session was arranged on stage. Even though I was in this myself I will say that I enjoyed it immensely. Some of the numbers I have heard people do in the past worked incredibly well with the wall of sound behind them – and everyone was obviously having fun!

So, as a festival organizer myself, I have to say that my hat is off to Russell and his team for thinking ‘outside the loop’ with their guests. It was fun festival and I would recommend it to anyone.

Bernadette

Canterbury Folk Festival, Easter 2007

From the nz-folk list:

A quick report back on a very mellow and lovely Canterbury festival. Thanks to the organisers. It gets better every year! Or is that just me who gets to know more people every year and so enjoys it more? Quite a mixed bag of musicians this year, from an English trad feller through thirties swing to some younger local (and loud!) artists, all tastes catered for. Enda Kenny and his great band were my highlight - I just love the way Enda uses words and the naughty way he delivers them, and Lindsay is a GREAT backing fiddle player. Mike Mikaelides Moroney was an added bonus in the band at the final concert. James Wilkinson was in fine form, I've never seen him play with such fluidy and verve.

My partner Fran got some nice pics of him (and lots of other stuff), shortly to be up on the site music.nelson.geek.nz .

Chris While with the voice of gold added her own magic to the mix. There were also a raft of wonderful workshops, topped by the magnificent tunes workshop :) And the usual Easter delicacies like the blind date concert, fairy "bondage" grotto for the kids and the much-patronised coffee bar. I sampled a variety of late night sessions from serious diddly through to lovely English trad harmony, mmmmm.

The spoons were a great idea for meeting people, what a nice pickup line "may I spoon with you?" Thank goodness nobody thought of playing the damn things. And after four years of going to these festivals, I've finally learned how to stay awake until the wee small hours and then still be able to function the next day! My body must have acclimatised to the folky
atmosphere.

See y'all there again next year.

Jenni K

Mike Scott Edits Himself

From the nz-folk list: Interesting piece in the Guardian Online from Mike Scott of the Waterboys who looked up his entry in Wikipedia and tried to correct errors, only to be re-corrected...

Compadres: James Keelaghan and Oscar Lopez

From the nz-folk list:

As a long-time fan of Canadian James' songwriting, I was sceptical as to how that could be combined with a virtuoso, Chilean, 'latino' style, nylon strung guitar. Wednesday's concert here in Christchurch blew away any doubts I might have had. These guys are sheer dynamite, the songs shine through and the instrumentals are breathtaking. The term 'virtuoso' is overused, but nothing else can describe the skills of Oscar on guitar and in a style that we rarely, if ever, see here in NZ. The close friendship these guys have off-stage extends into their music and the sheer exuberance and fun is there for all to see. They have a wicked sense of humour too. The lack of any comments after their appearance at the Auckland Festival I find staggering, but for anyone lucky enough to have them appearing anywhere near over the next week, don't hesitate... It could be a while before you'll get another chance to see them in NZ, but I hope it won't be. cheers davy [Stuart]