San Francisco Celtic Music Festival, March 4-5 1995
It was celtic music nirvana again in San Francisco last weekend as the
fourth annual Celtic Music and Arts Festival swung into action, bringing
many of the top Irish and Scottish acts to the West Coast for a two-day
overdose on fine traditional music.
As before, the festival was in the Fort Mason festival hall, a big
concrete-and-metal warehouse which is a great place to hold a few thousand
people, but has woefully bad acoustics. The organisers have been hammered
in the past for this, and each year come up with more and more fancy
tricks to get around it. This year they had an array of speakers running
down the middle of the hall, separated by digital delay lines and a sound
board that looked like something out of Star Trek. The result? For the
most part I thought it was a substantial improvement, with a few glaring
exceptions, but nothing bad enough to seriously dent my enjoyment. There
seemed to be a lot more people at the afternoon sessions, which helped
soften the acoustics, but also made for some background noise on the
quieter sets. Half the hall was filled with various booths, mostly selling
celtic designs and music, some food (like soda bread for $5 a loaf!) and a
pair of republican booths (Noraid and some local Provo supporters) who
didn't seem to have heard about the ceasefire yet...
Back to the music, in order of appearance -
The Core
John Faulkner
Errr....errr....despite my best promises to the contrary, I spent half of
the opening sets getting to Fort Mason and the other half desperately
trying to find parking. Better get the bus next year. The Core are a local
trad/folk band, and John Faulkner is a singer best known for his
collaborations with Dolores Keane, as well as being a one-time member of
Ewan McColl's critics group. I heard that his set was pretty good, but
more regular folk singing than celtic.
Andrew McNamara and The Lahawns
Kennelly Dancers
Next up were a relatively new band, The Lahawns, fronted by Andrew
McNamara. They really got things rolling for me with a good blast of
traditional dance music, which continued into the next act as they did the
music for the perennial Kennelly Dancers. The Lahawns have Andrew playing
a very solid accordion, with Breeda Smith on fiddle (and one great pair of
jigs on tin whistle), Jimmy Higgins on keyboard, bodhran and snare drum,
and Kevin Hough on guitar. The music was regular jigs and reels, without
any pretensions to greatness, but played with care and feeling, even when
accompanying dancers - too often this ceili music is no more than a celtic
drum machine to give the dancers some rhythm, but the Lahawns mostly
avoided that fate.
The Kennelly dancers are a local dance school, whose colourful costumes
and intricate set dances are always a big hit with the audience, and so
they proved again this year. A friend of mine commented that the dancing
looked a bit more liberal this year, with more movement and higher kicking
(shades of Riverdance?) but to my eye it still looked very regimented, and
some of the dancers expressions looked more like determined terror than
fun, but it was still a grand sight.
Martin Hayes and Randal Bays
Fiddler Martin Hayes came back with his guitar accompanist Randal Bays and
took the audiences breath away as he did last year. For one who has
dedicated himself to preserving a particular regional style (that of Co.
Clare) and eschewing all the modern fusions of trad and other genres, he's
showing that there's a lot that's new and fresh in the old tradition. That
Clare style tends to the slow and lyrical, as he shows in his solo album,
but he also showed off some manic wild fiddling that captivated the hall.
He also played a few very simple tunes that sounded like they were from a
children's tunebook, but came across very lyrically. The one drawback was
some problems with the acoustics, particularly when Bays joined in on
second fiddle and the sound got quite screechy. Good news from Martin is
that his second album is due out in a few months from Green Linnet, and he
has a contract with them for another two. At the end he got two standing
ovations before the audience rushed off to buy up every copy of his CD in
the hall.
Arcady
Arcady came next, in what seems to be a revitalised lineup. Back in 1989
or thereabouts, they had a big hit with their one album "After the ball",
featuring Frances Black, and after that I hadn't heard of them until this
year. Black is long gone, and Niamh Parsons is their current singer (she
has just released her solo album on Green Linnet). Percussionist
extraordinaire "Ringo" McDonagh and accordionist Jackie Daly are still
with the band, with new (at least to me) names Patsy Broderick
(keyboards), Brendan Larrissey (fiddle) and Breton guitarist Nicholas
Quemener. The overall sound was a bit like the early De Dannan music,
particularly in Niamh Parson's singing, which is reminiscent of Dolores
Keane. She sang a few haunting solo songs, which were a bit hard to follow
in the late afternoon din at Fort Mason. The instrumentals were excellent;
whether or not this is a new lineup, they certainly sound very together.
Ringo's bodhran (and bones, triangle) provided the rhythmic line, with
some very fine fiddling and guitar playing. The synth was set to a rather
tinkly tone on some pieces which sounded a bit off to my ears. Quemener
sang a Cajun-style song in French as well as playing a very fluid piece on
wooden flute. I particularly liked that one or two of the players took a
rest in many of the pieces, along each instrument some space to sing out,
and once they all got together, it came across as a powerful sound.
Sharon Shannon Band
The incomparable Sharon Shannon came next with her band - Mary Custy on
fiddle, Trevor Hutchinson on bass and a new guitarist, Donogh Hennessy. I
had just got her new album a few days before and so was full of
expectation. The opening brought me down to earth quickly - the band
sounded tense, and Sharon seemed to be working at the music, as opposed to
the usual impression you get that it just flows out of her. The sound
system (which apparently was set up by the band) was also way out of whack
- too loud and far too much mushy bass. After a while, things lightened up
a bit and the sound problems started to sort out. They played a bunch of
tunes from Out the Gap (Sparky, The Big Mistake, Bungee Jumpers) and then
really hit their stride with my two favourites from her first album - The
Blackbird and Tune for a found harmonium. She also played several tunes
not on either album, and played both on fiddle and tin whistle. The band
has moved to a far rockier sound than last year. Donogh Hennessy in
particular played a very driving guitar, flaking away for all he was
worth, along with the bass. Custy's fiddle was not very prominent, and she
herself seemed to totally ignore both the audience and the rest of the
band even when she was being introduced. The music got better and better
as the set wore on; at the end they got a massive standing ovation and
played a magnificent encore that had almost everyone out of their seats.
Wolfstone
The Scottish celtic rock band Wolfstone finished off the night in dramatic
style. I think it would be fair to say that they are a rock band playing
in folk style rather than the other way around, and it was very
refreshing, after hearing many celtic groups trying to rock up their
music. About half the band are from a rock rather than trad background,
which accounts for a lot of that. The sets were absolutely blistering,
anchored in Duncan Chisholm's electric fiddle, and with a fair helping of
rock drama - climactic song endings (ALL of them), jamming together and
jumping around from the tallest part of the stage; whatever the case, they
really looked like they were enjoying themselves, and the audience
certainly were as well.
Sunday
San Francisco Ceili Band
Michael & Shay Black
I won't go into the after-the-festival happenings on Saturday save to say
that they caused me to miss the opening again though those I asked said
that the SF ceili band played a fine dance set. I did catch the second
half of the set by Michael and Shay Black, brothers of Mary and Frances.
They have both strong voices, well matched for ballad singing which is
mostly what they did. I'm not big into ballad's, so beyond saying they
were good, I can't say much...
Andrew McNamara and The Lahawns
Kennelly Dancers
The Lahawns and the Kennelly Dancers were back again for the next sets, in
fine style. There were some adult dancers this time round, but overall it
was similar to yesterday.
Tommy Makem
After that came the grand old man of Irish folk, Tommy Makem. Before
Planxty, the Bothy Band or any of the other big folk ensembles, Tommy was
introducing Irish folk ballad singing to the world with the Clancy
brothers (way back in 1961). Well, he's still singing, and he sounds much
the same. All those years have also greatly honed his skill in managing
his audience, which was a treat to watch. Backed by a guitarist Eugene
Byrne from Dublin and bassist Steve Wainright, plus his own banjo, he sang
a rake of ballads, revolutionary songs and even a bunch of kiddies songs
(does "Wa-wa-wa-waltzing With Bears" count as celtic?) and gave the
audience no rest until they joined in. Different was it was to much of
modern celtic music, even hearts of stone could help but enjoy his set.
Old Blind Dogs
After Makem's fairly gentle set, Scotland's Old Bind Dogs stormed on with
a high-energy trad-rock set that was one of my personal highlights of the
show. Their most distinctive aspect was a driving rhythm on conga drums,
which ran through all their music, mostly to great effect, though they
could have done with giving it a break for a bit. The oldest of the Dogs
is singer/guitarist Ian Benzie, who has a great voice, full of resonant
authority and presence. My favourite was a menacing version of The Cruel
Sister (recorded by Clannad as the Two Sisters, and by a number of other
groups). One or two songs had such a wall of sound, it was difficult to
distinguish the various lines, but you couldn't mistake the energy and
drive in any of the music.
Richard Thompson
I missed his set, since he really didn't seem to have much in common with
celtic music (besides, I was hungry!). I got back in to meet about a
thousand fans streaming out at the end of the set, so that's at least one
reason why he was invited! (still, nice to have a wide range - and a
dinner break!)
Boys of the Lough
A great group, but I thought they were badly misplaced as the finale. To
my mind they play a measured, well-crafted brand of celtic music, a bit
like fellow old-timers the Chieftains, but not the kind that's wild or
rousing. I would have liked them better earlier or in a smaller place, but
they played a good set; most memorable were a set of tunes played solo by
their amazing Sheland fiddler, Aly Bain. And the wild finale? - of all
things, a waltz! Now I'd like to see Wolfstone try that!
Verdict: Sound system way up, the calibre and diversity of the performers
still excellent, a GREAT weekend, and many thanks to those who made it all
happen.
Gerard.