Resplendent in bunnet, Glasgow exile Enoch Kent reflected for a moment as he prepared to introduce a fellow Rambling Boy to the Royal Concert Hall audience, writes Donald MacPhail.

Rambling Boys Reunion
Glasgow Royal Concert Hall
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Resplendent in bunnet, Glasgow exile Enoch Kent reflected for a moment as he prepared to introduce a fellow Rambling Boy to the Royal Concert Hall audience. "Rambling Boys?" he questioned. "We're all old farts."

But while most of the veterans forming the 2009 line-up of Celtic Connections' (not so) grumpy old men did first come to prominence in the 1960s folk scene, they were intent on proving that passions are undimmed, trading banter and casting a critical eye over the political landscape.

Brian McNeill laid down a powerful social message, typified by his vivid mining song The Prince Of Darkness and appeal for unionisation, Sell Your Labour Not Your Soul. Pondering the path down which capitalism has taken us of late, Dick Gaughan offered a searing take on Pete Seeger's Waist Deep In The Big Muddy, while Archie Fisher lamented the demise of the fishing industry with the haunting Final Trawl, the audience spontaneously joining in the plaintive refrain. Kent, who founded The Reivers, before emigrating to Canada in the 1960s, was the joker in the pack, interspersing social comment with comic compositions such as Crematorium Song ("that's not Latin for a dairy").

In the midst of these sparky Scots, bickering light-heartedly over chords, Arlo Guthrie provided a calm, good-humoured presence, whether lending his rich voice to the uptempo ragtime of I'm Alabama Bound or visiting his father's legacy with Woody's simple but affecting My Peace. This provided a welcome counterpoint to the evening's engaging but relentlessly masculine tales of rambling gamblers, crap- playing pall-bearers, canal-digging navvies and the inventor of the marine chronometer.

Finishing up with a rousing version of Goodnight Irene, the Rambling Boys showed there are plenty of miles in them yet.

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