A world of music at Celtic Connections
THE first weekend of the 18-day Celtic Connections festival opened on Jan 19 with an Evening with Béla Fleck and the Flecktones at Glasgow Royal Concert Hall.
Howard Levy, pianist and harmonicist extraordinaire, who has recently rejoined the band after a 17-year hiatus, completed the line-up.
What Fleck described as a ‘tasteless’ first half fizzed with virtuosity and invention. The group’s collaboratively composed madness sets Fleck’s astonishing talents among equals, featuring superb new tunes from Rocket Science, their recently released album, alongside some oldies-but-goodies.
Levy dug into a deep palette with dexterity on the harmonica, drumitarist Futureman sang a memorable version of 1990 Sunset Road from their first album and Victor Wooten played one of his jaw-dropping solos based on Norwegian wood. Nashville fiddle-player Casey Dreissen joined for the end of the set, further ramping up the excitement.
The ‘quite tasteful’ second half saw Ireland’s Karan Casey join them on stage for the first number. American singer Abigail Washburn and gaelic singer Kathleen MacInnes joining next, along with flute player Michael McGoldrick, John Doyle on guitar and Martin O’Neill on Bodhran. Together they experimented with an exciting mix of Celtic folk music with the Flecktone sound.
From a duet solo between Futureman on drumitar and O’Neill’s bodhran to an inspired melding of three different traditional songs in three languages, there were plenty of moments that defined Celtic Connections’ ability to conjure up unique musical meetings.
Glasgow comes alive with music for the festival, demonstrating why the city deserves its Unesco City of Music status. Futureman said he had coined a new term at a session in the Ben Nevis pub — ‘celebratious’.
The first of the daily Danny Kyle Open Stage showcased some of last year’s award winners. Now in its 14th year, the packed free events provide a warm and supportive audience and great sound engineering to 80 acts over the festival. Rura, a quartet featuring bagpipes, really impressed and have clearly had a busy year in the wake of their Danny Kyle Award success in 2011.
With up to 28 events per day the worst thing about the festival is having to choose between acts. The double bill of the Carolina Chocolate Drops and Punch Brothers at the O2 ABC arena was a safe bet. A big and mixed audience demonstrated the appeal that great music has to all ages — as the Drops’ Dom Flemons said, “we’re all folk here.”
The New York 5-piece Punch Brothers combine savvy and humourous lyrics with a genuine string band style that went down a treat. When the Carolina Chocolate Drops came on stage for the second half it was hard to imagine how they could follow up such an energetic first half. They opened their set with a simple combo of Rhiannon Giddens on fiddle accompanied by two drums, playing with such fire that it was easy to see why the Grammy Awards winners are one of the hottest folk acts in the world.
Introducing two new band members, Leyla McCella on cello and banjo and bones player Hubby Jenkins, the African-American string band had the crowd whistling and hollering. Giddens nearly brought the house with her Scots Gaelic mouth music — a tradition that has lived on in her home state of Virginia since the 17th century. Rumours that Giddens plans to spend some time in Ireland in the future are already causing a stir.
This year legendary late-night festival action has for some years been split into two, a Festival Club taking place in Apollo 23 night club while Late-Night Sessions are at the concert hall. On the first Friday night the dark and noisy club was the place for chattering masses, while the most folk fans were relaxing at convivial late-night sessions.
We were lucky to catch Swedish trio Väsen, featuring the beautiful nyckelharpa, who were just arrived and ravenous to play the festival ahead of their headline gig next day. All late night performances are played at the musicians’ discretion for the sheer love of it, and it shows.
A brief foray into Saturday night’s headline gig at the Royal Concert Hall revealed a crowd bubbling with enjoyment at the Québécois quartet Le Vent du Nord’s 10th anniversary celebration.
The celebration featured the Canadians performing with Väsen and a string section as well as Irish singer Cathy Jordan kicking up a storm on the bodhran in her bare feet.
Over at the beautiful Old Fruitmarket venue an odd combination of Portuguese fado siren Ana Moura before the explosive joy of N’Diale didn’t entirely come off, although it was an honour to hear the Breton-Malian project N’Diale live. The crowd had been lulled into a doze in their seats by Moura before what might have been a energy explosion in the second half. The bewitching Foune Diarra of N’Diale worked hard to coax the sleepy audience out of their seats to wake them up.
One of the many festival lures is the pop-up music shop hosted by Scotland-based folk specialists Coda. For the musicians as much as for the audience it is a huge attraction and I met a number of headline artists filling their flight cases with rare gems and fresh titles.
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