Live music: Scullion
I was a child of Scullion in the late 1970s. Maybe, just maybe, that’s what took the edge off this gig for me. I went to the first of The Live Album Sessions, run in conjunction with Cork Folk Festival, looking for the special energy they had back in the ’70s and came away, well, flat.
I should have seen it coming. It was all very civilised, too civilised — an audience drinking glasses of red wine as Sonny Condell, Philip King and Robbie Overson took to the stage — and their seats. Whatever about guitarists Condell and Overson, live-wire King shouldn’t do seats. He is their energy and at times in this live recording he looked like a man in a strait-jacket. There is absolutely no doubting the group’s individual talents, and at times we were witness to those, especially in Overson’s brilliant solo instrumental of ‘Mo Ghile Mear’, Condell on ‘Long Wave’ and King on ‘Factory Girl’.
