Martin Boland & Alan Hunter: Live at The Wee Folk Club

*****

See Boland & Hunter at the Garden Sessions

Review by Tom Harland

The irrepressible Paddy Bort treated Wee Folk Club loyals to a wonderfully entertaining evening of songs and banter from Royal Oak stalwarts Martin Boland and Alan Hunter on Sunday the 1st March.

The two individual talents have collaborated with an album ("10 B&H") as well as teaming up to deliver the most powerful sessions the Oak has on offer to unsuspecting tourists, passers-by and Royal Oak faithfuls.

As a duo rarely heard in the respectful atmosphere of a concert setting, the audience were able to aoppreciate the more finessed elements of the pairs' musicianship which is often lost in the raucous cut-and-thrust of the session environment.

Moving through a number of original numbers and traditional songs, we were treated to Boland's delicate finger picking and emotionally-charged self-penned numbers such as "Beneath the Flood" along with the gutsy offerings of Hunter in his trademark "peaty" voice which seems to be cut from the very rock of Scotland itself.

Together the pair have a unique ability to harmonise two quite different vocals and blend the mature melodies of Boland's guitar with the percussive force of Hunter's Citern. Throw in a hilarious and refreshingly unrehearsed repetoire of banter which, like the very best of dark comdey, does not shy from the controversial and the obscure, and you have a fantastic representation of what the very best of Edinburgh's session leaders can deliver when unfettered from morons demanding Jonny Cash and Oasis numbers.

Grab any chance you get to se this pair perform and I throughly recommend buying "10 B&H" to own a unique slice of Scottish folk culture.

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