With another three sisters at home – as the Henry Girls themselves conceded – they really shouldn't be short-staffed when one of them has to call off work with the lurgi.
The rotating squad system is a matter that has yet to addressed, however, and on Tuesday Karen and Lorna had to make do without Jolene, whose silent harp solo still earned a round of applause in her absence.
It was that kind of night, as the sisters more or less spontaneously rearranged songs to fit their voices and still quite plentiful instrumentation, leaving occasional gaps and inserting the odd Les Dawson-inspired note choice.
Fiddle, accordion, keyboard and ukulele were pressed into service for a set that owed more to American roots music than their native Donegal, although there were charming highlights from this side of the pond in the shape of a slightly hesitant but honest reading of Richard Thompson's Dimming of the Day, and a fun version of Elvis Costello's Watching the Detectives, which was introduced with mirthful mock antiquity as a "really old song – from the 1980s." It's even older than that, if memory serves.
There was no lack of contrasts, with the jolly, music hall-styled Couldn't Ask for More preceding Bruce Springsteen's hard won prairie prayer Reason to Believe.
If the brand new original The Weather erred towards the throwaway, the pair's intuitive blending of their voices made for pleasurable rootsy listening on the Bobby Gentry-esque Sing My Sister Down and the Appalachian standard with an Irish tune, Cold Rain and Snow. Not perhaps the concert they would have planned to give on their first visit to Leith but an enjoyable one nonetheless.
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