Star rating: **
Airplane passengers allocated the seat in front of Cara Luft should beware. If it's not tea from the former Wailin' Jennys singer-guitarist's travel mug stored overhead dripping on to unsuspecting bonces, there's the danger of attack from cherry tomato seeds that Luft involuntarily splutters into their hairdos.
Luft tells a good mishap story and she has quite a few to tell, but the songs they lead into can often be an anticlimax. This is partly to do with her diction, which can leave something to be desired, and a rather forced vocal style. Perhaps it's her microphone technique, because when she sang the chorus of one of several traditional songs, the Bonnie Light Horseman, off-mike, she conveyed a clarity, warmth and body that was lacking elsewhere.
Then, later, her unaccompanied, unamplified reading of The Blacksmith, even competing with the clamour from an adjoining bar, rang through with a sweetly melodious, storyteller's sensitivity.
All of which is a pity, since Luft could hardly ask for a better accompanist than fellow Canadian Hugh MacMillan, the sort of chap who, as Luft rightly said, can play anything with strings on it. He brought a real frontier authenticity with his slide bouzouki phrases discreetly placed alongside Luft's rendering of the late Willie P Bennett's Sunset Pendulum, and his brilliantly accomplished bass guitar-playing brings shape and presence without ever intruding. He also added guitar to Luft's mandolin on her gospel-styled Down to the River, probably the most convincing song in an evening that had plenty of variety but ultimately proved disappointing.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article