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.