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Review by Dave "The Angles"
Gimble
Celtic Connections have expanded their rather impressive
tally of venues this year to include, for the first time,
the Recital Room in Glasgow’s City Halls and to my
mind Celtic Connections has struck gold with both the venue
and the idea producing these ‘Gin and Tonic concerts,’
the nature of the smaller venue is that it will almost inevitably
be busy or full which in this case only adds to the atmosphere
and the 6pm start time means you can relax for an hour with
a drink before dinner or a night time concert.
The only draw back of a concert of this nature is that
the artist have seem to have a greater task to confront
when taking on a small audience who are no more than 2 feet
away and it may have been this that made for what seemed
like a slightly nervous start to the Laurals concert last
Saturday.
Though there was an upbeat start to the performance I felt
that the nerves came across a bit in the harmonies that
for the most part were inaudible and this coupled with the
rather poppy nature of the song left me apprehensive as
to what was to come. I have to say however that my fears
were quickly put to rest with a very nice rendition of an
old favourite “Roll On The Day” The harmonies
provided by Mairearad Green were proven to be very accomplished
and I was left in no doubt as to both the vocal an musical
ability or singer/guitarist Jen Butterworth both of whom
perform also as 2 thirds of the Anna Massie Band. My only
gripe once again was that there seemed to be a tendency
to lift the chorus close to if not into the realms of pop.
The next surprise came in the form of a set of piano tunes
Beautifully performed by Mhairi Hall. Though I was happy
to sit an listen to a lovely set of old tunes it seemed
quite bizarre to me that, with 2 members of another tunes
band sitting on stage, the piano wasn’t accompanied?
I feel that in the case of the Laurals though they lean,
sometimes dangerously, close to performing pop music and
until now I may have seemed quite negative I have to now
say that they were very very good! All Three display a great
degree of talent they perform well as a band and Jen Butterworth
has a voice that is enjoyable to hear but half way through
the concert I was starting to feel that all this wasn’t
enough and that something would have to happen to turn this
review around.
I am happy to report that I was not disappointed. Firstly
we were treated to a song that was unfortunately unnamed,
a sort of upbeat pop/folk number that struck the balance
between a lighter more poppy sound with folk undertones
and a genuinely folkie story but also driven by a more jazzy
sound from the piano. This immediately sunk into a slower
more lingering tune, again unfortunately unnamed, that showed
off over the piece the talent that all 3 posses.
In the second half we also heard a short series of box
tunes again performed more than ably by Mairearad Green
and though perhaps more reminiscent of her roots in the
Anna Massie Band they fitted admirable into the Laurals
repertoire.
Lastly They performed a rendition of The classic shanty
South Australia and though I feel it is very much a shanty
and should be performed as such without adding an upbeat
tune (or any tune for that matter) it has to be said that
it had the audience departing happy and with their feet
still tapping.
I can most definitely recommend having a listen to the
Laurals. You may find like me the occasional forays into
pop world to be a bit tiresome and hard to overlook but
the gems in their repertoire are most certainly worth the
effort.
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