Battlefield Band's "forward with Scotland's past" strapline was devised for a line-up that now has no representatives in the band's current personnel, but it's arguably never been more appropriate.
The two Scottish-born musicians at the heart of Battlefield's onstage formation, fiddlers Alasdair White and Ewen Henderson, bring direct connections to the music of the Highlands and Islands, and they tap into the piping and strathspey traditions with huge feeling.
And while the band may no longer use electronic keyboards or any of the other more exotic elements that might have contributed to some notions of moving forward, there are other forces at work, such as song arrangements and the undercurrents that accompany certain tunes, that speak of progression while retaining respect for the music's history.
The tune sets here, many of them taken from the band's new album, Room Enough For All, were outstanding: White's marvellously rugged strathspeys merging with more reflective Gaelic airs, and pipe marches, including a twin-bagpipes introduction to the second half by Henderson and the long since adopted Scot, Mike Katz, slipping into super-fluent reels that maintained their shape even at the highest tempo.
When not accompanying his colleagues on guitar, Sean O'Donnell sang robustly, bringing fellow Irishman Louis MacNeice's Bagpipe Music poem off the page with descriptive colour, and Henderson, as well playing fiddle, pipes and piano, sang a Gaelic seafaring song and puirt-a-beul with vigour. A finale, with friend-of-the-band, Hamish Napier, sitting in on piano closed the concert with a rousing, warmly expanded sound.
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