Carolina Chocolate Drops,
Strathclyde Suite,
Glasgow royal concert hall
HHHH
News of the end to the recession had obviously leaked out by Tuesday night and a capacity audience decided to party like it was 1929 to the accompaniment of the heady old-time brew of young American trio, Carolina Chocolate Drops.
If their greatest challenge was to bring to life the normally leaden atmosphere of the Strathclyde Suite, it was one they approached with some gusto. The excitement was palpable from the moment they took to the stage, perfectly groomed in old style southern attire: all checked shirts, braces and pork pie hats.
Carolina Chocolate Drops certainly know how to work an audience and successfully walked the fine line between overt showmanship and consummate musical talent. And make no mistake, this lot are hot. Rarely has such fun been had listening to what can at best be described as obscure (although not difficult) music, as they single-handedly reclaimed the black string band and jug (yes, that would be a gin jug) tradition.
Imagine a country hoe-down fuelled by amphetamine and you come close to understanding the pace at which much of their music was played. The trio -- Rhiannon Gibbons, Justin Robinson and Dom Flemons -- performed the numbers at breakneck speed with only the occasional sobering waltz to catch breath. It was exhilarating.
Of the set, it comprised largely traditional Carolina tunes, rearranged by the band, with a sprinkling of self-penned songs and a couple of surprises to boot. Remember when string quartets used to include a radical reworking of a rock song in their repertoire? Well, in a neat trick, the Drops covered Blu Cantrell’s 2001 R’n’B classic Hit Em Up Style, giving it a dirt-floor dance twist -- with banjo! The standing ovation at the end was well deserved.
Dave Prater
Music From The Penguin Café and Spiro
Glasgow Royal Concert Hall
HHHHH
Spiro are a four-piece from Bristol who play a kind of mesmeric, instrumental, folk trance. Drawing material from traditional North of England sources they set up rhythmic loops and go at it hammer and tongs. Quite remarkable, and the perfect preparation for the headliners.
There can’t have many harmonium-driven outfits, but the Penguin Café Orchestra was certainly the pick of the crop. Founded by Simon Jeffes in 1976, after a particularly vivid dream, as many great bands are, the Penguins produced six studio albums and a wealth of unique, memorable material. Sadly, Jeffes died in 1997, but his son, Arthur, has taken up the baton and the Penguin Café lives again.
Categorising this music is a bit like herding cats, but there are elements of Nyman, Glass, folk, swing, dance, you name it, it’s in there somewhere. Young Jeffes has done a terrific job in putting together such a talented bunch, who not only reproduce his father’s music, but give it their own interpretation. Much of it is familiar from film and TV. Telephone And A Rubber Band, Perpetuum Mobile, Steady State and Music for a Found Harmonium have been used extensively and received an airing here.
A couple of new songs, Bramble and The Fox & The Leopard slotted seamlessly into the set, the latter inducing some energetic jiving. Jeffes finished the show with a solo piano piece written for his father’s memorial service.Wherever he is, Jeffes senior must be very proud.
Stuart Morrison
Naturally 7,
O2 ABC, Glasgow
HHHH
When The New York "vocal play" septet returned to the stage for an encore, it was with a glorious five minutes of self-composed Motown pastiche, choreographed in a style to make The Temptations look to their laurels and featuring an arrangement that Norman Whitfield would have been proud of.
This being an a cappella performance, of course, every meticulously accurate sound was vocally produced. It was sensational. The rest of the time Naturally 7 were merely astonishing.
Edinburgh-based beatboxer Ruari Sutherland was the man you felt sorry for. He joined Gaelic singer Norrie MacIver’s band in the support slot and, together with a fluid bassist, gave the music a funky rhythmic edge. Unfortunately his skills, while unusual in a red-haired bloke in a kilt, rather paled by comparison with the work we heard from Naturally 7’s Warren Thomas.
Seated at the back of the stage on a drum stool playing an imaginary kit with imaginary sticks (solemnly handed to him by his colleagues), his impersonation of the parts of kick, snare and hi-hat is uncanny, but the articulacy with which he combines them all is downright supernatural. And Warren Thomas is only a fraction of the whole Naturally 7 experience.
When the ensemble is motoring it is impossible to distinguish who is doing what, and the sonic overload is matched to very slick moves and showbiz presentation.
This always lives on the right side of cheesy, even when we reach the obligatory rendition of Phil Collins’s Feel It (In The Air Tonight), their YouTube hit, in a show that also comfortably embraced a roots gospel number and some sincere Christian gospel testimony.
Keith Bruce
The Chieftains,
Royal Concert Hall, Glasgow
HHHH
THE Chieftains are famous for fielding more honorary Irish players than even Jack Charlton managed but they may have excelled themselves here. At various times Mexicans, Galicians, Canadians, Virginians and Scots, including a whole pipe band, all slotted into a cross between a celebration of a little mentioned part of Irish military history, a multi-dimensional dancing display and a back room pub session.
Amid all this sound and colour, special guest Ry Cooder appeared as a kind of supersub, sparingly used but making the most telling of contributions. His touch on the guitar was magic and his singing, with muchos gravitas, of The Sands of Mexico and the almost-finale, Goodnight Irene, with Session A9’s ‘Flaco’ MacAlpine on Tex-Mex accordion, constituted a collector’s item that future Glaswegians will likely learn about on grandparents’ knees.
The show’s central theme was the story of the San Patricios, the battalion mainly comprising Irish but also Scots who abandoned their posts and joined the Mexicans fighting the American army in the 1840s.
Cooder’s Letter Home took us behind the San Patricios’ lines, Californian-Mexican folklorists Los Cenzontles added soulful local colour, the Scottish Power Pipe Band led the march into battle and various Chieftains tunes and Scots Gaelic singer Alyth McCormack suggested possible diversions, allowing for a prescient Rocky Road to Dublin that now habitually detours via the Stones’ Satisfaction.
Even with a sprawling cast, it never dragged. The music was accomplished and smartly executed and the dancing superb, blending Irish steps, Ottawa Valley rubber legged expertise, Mexican pageantry and finally, a conga variation as half the audience were led, grinning madly, round the auditorium.
Rob Adams
This review appeared in the later edition of yesterday’s Herald.
All Celtic Connections concerts are sponsored by Scottish Power.
