Names don't come much more illustrious in Irish traditional music over the past 40 years than Messrs Lunny, O'Flynn, Irvine and Glackin.
And songs and tunes don't get much more familiar in their shared histories than My Heart's Tonight In Ireland, The Blacksmith and Kitty Got A Clinking Coming From The Fair (renamed appropriately here as Fling Number 2).
But it's exactly these musicians' ability to reproduce the familiar with the freshness and sheer classy togetherness that they evinced in this genial and relaxed reunion concert that has earned their reputations. The ageless Irvine sings, with his trademark clearly enunciated attention to storytelling. His partnership with Lunny on various fretted instruments produces both the perfect backdrop for songs and a cannily-employed power resource behind the fiddle and uilleann pipes/whistle mastery respectively of Glackin and O'Flynn.
Indeed the latter pair played with such a tight understanding that I could have used just one completely solo set of tunes from Glackin for my own indulgence, although his "piping on the fiddle"-styled phrasing on the mid-way point jigs was possibly the treat of a great night.
Similar togetherness was evident in piper Fred Morrison's opening set, where his regular partners, Matheu Watson (guitar) and Martin O'Neill (bodhran), were joined by bluegrass pair Ron Block (banjo) and Tim O'Brien (mandolin) on a journey that began in Scotland, with both rampant and reflective tunes, and ended up giving the bluegrass heartlands a right good scorching.
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