GIG REVIEW, National Concert Hall, Dublin - by Steve Hunt

Saturday 5th October 2019. National Concert Hall, Dublin. 

Tradition Now: Lisa O’Neill, Ye Vagabonds and Brìghde Chaimbeul 

The Saturday afternoon skies above Dublin are giving the city a good soaking. Time to find a ‘quiet street where old ghosts meet’, and seek shelter for an hour or so. Where better than O'Donoghue's Bar? where the old ghosts of Ronnie, Luke, Barney and the rest of the Dubliners gaze down in their beardy benevolence from the hundreds of framed photos and portraits that adorn the walls? Ah, but I’m not here just to muse on ‘the rare auld times’, but for this evening's Tradition Now event at the National Concert Hall.

 

Tonight’s concert is a showcase for River Lea Records - the London-based Rough Trade Records  subsidiary founded by Geoff Travis, Jeanette Lea and Tim Chipping, whose stated mission is: ‘releasing beautiful and strange traditional music from Britain, Ireland and beyond.’  Before the show even starts, the air of anticipation in the audience is palpable. “Brilliant!” exclaims the man in the seat behind me, as Skye piper Brìghde Chaimbeul  and her fiddler accomplice Aidan O’Rourke walk on stage. “Who are they?” whispers his companion. “I have no idea”, the first man replies…

 

Chaimbeul, a native Gaelic speaker, doesn’t say too much on stage (leaving O’Rourke to do the lion’s share of introductions) but she plays with an expressive eloquence that renders verbiage obsolete. The symbiosis of piper and fiddler creates a music that is not just technically brilliant but also deeply moving. The addition of the concertina playing of the evening’s first guest - Lankum’s Radie Peat, turns the heat up still higher on an all-too brief forty-minute set.

 

Next up, it’s Ye Vagabonds, with brothers Brían and Diarmuid Mac Gloinn joined for the occasion by frequent third Vagabond Alain McFadden on harmonium and Irish-American fiddle player Jesse Smith. The traditional songs that comprise their superb album The Hare’s Lament are rendered with multi-instrumental dexterity, gentle good humour and the most sublime sibling harmonies this side of the Everlys and McGarrigles. Brìghde Chaimbeul returns with her whistles and small pipes to conclude a memorable performance that receives a long, loud, and wholly-deserved ovation.

 

During the interval, the stage is set for the un-billed ‘special guests’ who (to the surprise of absolutely no-one) are revealed as Lankum as they walk out to the kind of welcome that audiences reserve for home-town heroes. They perform just two songs (their epic, regretful version of The Wild Rover and Ian Lynch’s Hunting The Wren) - both from the astonishing, soon-to-be-released album, The Livelong Day. It’s rare to encounter a folk act with such a potent group identity ,and rarer still to find one that performs at such high levels of both intensity and integrity. They’re on tour now, so go and see them.

 

Headliner Lisa O’Neill greets the audience like a gathering of old friends  before she and Jesse Smith pay tribute to Margaret Barry and Michael Gorman with Percy French’s Come Back Paddy Reilly, To Ballyjamesduff.  Soon joined by her regular touring accompanists Christophe Capewell and Mic Geraghty, O’Neill serves up a set weighted heavily towards her own compositions, including Violet Gibson, Blackbird and Rock The Machine, alongside an affecting version of The Pogues’ Lullaby Of London and a show-stopping duet with Radie Peat on the traditional The Factory Girl. 

 

Encores are demanded and duly delivered by the evening’s entire cast. The real surprise guest - Galway sean-nos dancer Seosamh Ó Neachtain makes a fleet-footed cameo to the obvious delight of both the assembled musicians and the enraptured audience.

 

An evening of extraordinary music and memorable performances then, but one also notable for what doesn’t happen. Whilst Travis, Lee and Chipping are credited as the show’s ‘curators’, none of them appears on stage to introduce the acts, and there’s no commercial branding either on stage or at the merchandise stall. Rather than tritely trumpeting itself as a ‘scene’, River Lea Records (along with fellow travellers like film maker and documentarian Myles O’Reilly’s Abutus Yarns) are quietly and lovingly nurturing a genuine community of like-minded musicians whose artistry embodies the very essence of Tradition Now. Tonight, the capacity crowd at the National Concert Hall cheered and celebrated. Back at O’Donoghue’s, the old ghosts smiled.

 

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We are delighted to welcome Steve Hunt as a regular contributor to the Hobgoblin Music website.

Header photo: Ye Vagabonds, Credited to Carmen Hunt