Peter Mulvey @ Workman's Club Sunday 23rd March 2014

Playing in an intimate setting can be a challenge to an artist. Something about the audience dynamic and seeing the 'whites of their eyes' has caused many a performer to freeze in the headlights of expectation. Not Peter Mulvey however, who takes the constraints of an upstairs acoustic room and simply moves through the creative gears, until he is cruising at a speed that brings the appreciative audience along for the journey. And what a varied journey it is, drawing from his extensive song writing archive, a few well-chosen covers and a stripped down introduction to his new release, Silver Ladder, which has been getting very positive reviews.

Roadworks tours, as promoter, again get it right with bringing the talents of this fine singer/songwriter to an Irish tour. Working with such artists who are under the commercial radar is not easy, as the need to make everything work financially becomes a big hurdle for all concerned. Kudos then for this independent promoter, who always displays a positive attitude, in bringing such quality artists to our shores.

Peter Mulvey plays with elegance and a passion that gives his live performances quite an edge. In addition, he is a natural storyteller and his observations of life and tales from the road are engaging, humorous and sprinkled with a wisdom and perspective gained from years of touring and playing live.

The new release is featured heavily, as you would expect, with tracks like Trempealeau, Remember the Milkman, Landfall, If You Shoot At a King, You Must Kill Him and You Don't Have to Tell Me, providing strong proof that the creative muse burns brightly within the characters and vignettes of these songs.

Knuckleball Suite and Shirt get an airing from previous releases and an off mike version of the Beatles I Will is delivered with understated understanding of the song and its universal message of love.

Support act Kate O'Callaghan and Seamus Devenny also feature, with Kate singing harmony on a few songs and Seamus providing some very interesting violin accompaniment on others. Their opening set was perfectly delivered and contained lots of fine songs which marks them as an act to watch over the coming years. Kate has a beautiful voice and writes interesting song melodies and structures.

However, the night belongs to Peter Mulvey, a generous and talented performer who also gave an earlier workshop on guitar technique and song writing for those lucky enough to catch it. He takes a simple approach to the instrument and tries to break down the barriers that can often stop budding players from progressing their talents.

As part of a song writing group that is in contact every Tuesday, Peter speaks in terms of his 'homework assignment' and the discipline of turning in a song on a regular basis. Well, tonight we are given a beautifully realised example with Are You Listening, a wonderful human insight into the frailties of relationships and the need to forgive and move on. If Peter Mulvey has any message to impart then it is essentially the song for everyman. An entertaining night and what is more, an enriching experience.

Review and photograph by Paul McGee

Vince Gill @ Olympia Theatre 13th March 2013

Once the poster boy for mainstream country music, Vince Gill now plays music for his audience and himself. This performance marked Gill's first visit to Dublin since he played the Point Theatre back in 199? Times have changed and one would only have to compare Brad Paisley and band playing the same venue last year to see how much they have changed. Paisley is the current model and his loud, unsubtle version of country music undoubtedly has its devotees, but few here tonight would have swapped the two nights.

Gill and band are built for comfort not for speed. It was loose casual clothes all the way with all but Vince and second guitarist Tom Britt sitting on stools which  did not effect the music one iota. These players deserve individual mention in their own right as they excellently served the songs played on the night. They include long-time band members Pete Wasner on keyboards, the aformentiioned Tom Britt on guitar, David Hungate on bass with Tommy White on steel and Bill Thomas on drums and harmony vocals. These guys do exactly what they are supposed to and solo superbly when the song calls for it. They easily accommodated elements of blues, jazz, folk and rock into the countrified centre of the set.

 But front and centre is Vince Gill, a consummate singer, songwriter and guitarist. He's also a fine raconteur with a line in self-deprecating humour that took in everything from his weight, stating that he will be as big as Elvis if he goes in one more buffet line,  to the fact that he has made a career "singing like a woman"  and the fortunes of fame.  He related being in a mall and hearing two women passing, one of whom said ‘That that looks like Vince Gill.’ to which the other replied "He wishes". He also talked about his father, whom he described as being a combination of Clint Eastwood, John Wayne and General Patton,  a real old school,  non touchy-feely father whom he both feared and admired. Later in life his father came to him with a song idea which many years later Vince turned into a song with Rodney Crowell and recorded as the Notorious Cherry Bombs as It's Hard to Kiss the Lips at Night that Chew Your Ass Out All Day Long. He realised later the song was about his mother and father's relationship. The song went down well with the audience and was balanced with the more poignant songs in the set which included Bread and Water, a song about his late brother. 

Between those two emotional points in the two and three quarter hours set,  Gill covered many of his classic songs.  Never Alone, Never Knew Lonely, Liza Jane, Pocket Full Of Gold and I Still Believe In You were among a set that ran to 28 songs including two encores and an acoustic set where it was just Gill alone holding the packed house in the palm of his hand. The whole show was a reaffirmation that,  although country music has either moved to popper fringes or further underground,  it should be about the telling of stories and Vince Gill did this both in with his between song talk and with the songs themselves. 

There may be a strong amount of sentiment in Gill's songs, but it rings true and serves as a reminder of what country is losing. There is still an audience for the real thing and Vince Gill and his band are exactly that. Gill is a consummate player and singer who is very much at ease with himself, his music and his audience. So much so that I think we all felt "I still believe in you".

Review by Stephen Rapid. Photograph by Ronnie Norton

Secret Sisters@ The Sugar Club, Dublin - Tues 24th Jan 2012

Sisters Laura and Lydia Rogers are no longer a secret judging by the sell-out audience in the Sugar Club on a Tuesday night. The siblings went straight into their first song of a 17 song set and it was obvious that they have a growing confidence and a more astute awareness of an audience. Tonight the fifties-style dresses were replaced by jeans with black tops but the between song banter was very much a part of the act, as are the asides about having to share so much time together and the minor conflict that ensues from that. Laura how happy they were to be back in Dublin.

Laura said that because of the song Tennessee Me many people believed that they were from there rather than from Muscle Shoals, Alabama. Their home state was the subject of one of a number of self-written songs due to be included on their next album that they previewed in the show. The songs included King Cotton, the aforementioned Alabama tribute, Bad Habit, River Jordan, Little Again and a song written and sung by Laura that was a direct reaction to weather disasters in their home state. That song Tomorrow Will Be Kinder was  one of the evening’s highlights. They of course included a lot of covers, songs that they loved and heard growing up and singing on their front porch. Songs their father loved like Why Baby Why (a song  they stopped in the middle due to a distorted guitar and then faultlessly resumed once it was fixed), Am I That Easy To Forget, Your Cheatin’ Heart as well as a song that Laura had convinced Lydia to sing onstage, it was one of a number of songs that they often sang offstage. You Send Me worked well and got a great reaction - however she said that another song they occasionally did for themselves Careless Whisper would remain that way. They also did Do You Love An Apple? and revealed that when they started singing it neither they nor their father knew what “bugger all” meant. They do now. A highlight for this listener was the Everly Brothers (who they said they have often been compared to) Devoted To You.

As expected the harmonies throughout were sublime and the simple guitar accompaniment, shared by both sisters was effective. I do feel that in the future, after the release of the new album, a couple of additional players, double bass and lap steel perhaps?, would add that extra dimension. But it was a great night that showed that music in its most basic form of voice and guitar (and little light-hearted dialogue) can captivate an audience. The sisters have grown and learned from the large amount of touring they have done and their new album should take them to another level.

Review by Stephen Rapid. Photography by Ronnie Norton

Gillian Welch @ The Grand Canal Theatre, 17th Nov. 2011

Was the Gillian Welch concert one of the gigs of a lifetime? Yes. As a fellow audience member said ‘it was as close to perfect as is possible.’ It was an eager audience – tickets had been sold out for ages. After listening to Gillian’s own mix CD Gil and David came onstage at about 8:15 with Gil in her trademark dress and cowboy boots (a look later nicked by – of all people – Taylor Swift) and David in his neat grey suit and a face-concealing Stetson hat he got from James Monroe, Mr Bill Monroe’s son.

They went back to the very first album, Revival, to start the night with Gil’s Tear My Stillhouse Down and the great contrast of Gillian’s rock-solid flat top guitar rythmn playing against David’s intricate picking on his arch-top Epiphone is as characteristic and gorgeous as it always has been. In two 50 minute sets, plus 5 encores they played most of the new album The Harrow and the Harvest and songs from each of the other albums with particularly strong versions of Elvis Presley Blues, Revelator, No One Knows My Name, the still chilling Caleb Meyer and Look at Miss Ohio.

Their version of Six White Horses from the new album was a particular delight with David playing banjo and harmonica while Gil hamboned (used her body as and hands as a percussion instrument) and clog-danced, wryly commenting afterwards that she had intended to learn a fancy new clog-step ahead of the tour, but that ‘it just hadn’t happened’.

The encores raised the evening even higher – which I’d doubted was possible – with cover versions of O Brother’s I’ll Fly Away followed by the Johnny Cash/June Carter stalwart Jackson but culminating in an extraordinary choice, gorgeously played, of Jefferson Airplane’s White Rabbit. It was incongruous and absolutely…perfect.

While Gillian switched between guitar and banjo – and occasionally added harmonica – Dave stayed with his guitar excepting Six White Horses. His playing, particulary in his solos, continues to astound; I sometimes feel he gets himself into beautiful places that it will be impossible to get out of, but each time he resolves the solo and amazes his listeners. They are two halves whose sum really is greater than its parts. Gil’s singing apart from David, as in O Brother, is wonderful and his playing on his solo album and other projects is great, but I feel that they achieve an energy working together that is unique and unsurpassable – and we in the audience were blown away by it in the Grand Canal Theatre last Thursday. What a night!

Review by Sandy Harsch, Photograph by Ronnie Norton

Double Feature. John Mellencamp @ Grand Canal Theatre 28 June 2011

The show started early with Kurt and Ian Markus' gritty and attractive documentary It's About You, shot in hand-held style on grainy Super 8mm film it follows Mellencamp around the States, touring and recording his last album with T-Bone Burnett. It's insightful and visually arresting but perhaps a little long for some of the audience whose attention drifted towards the bar. The show itself, a 22 song set, which ran for almost two hours opened with the sentient voice of Johnny Cash before the curtains opened to reveal three guitarists with electric guitars and a drummer playing a stripped down kit of snare and standing tom and an acoustic bass guitar. The played with a concise power against a theatre backdrop of ancient ruins, which seemed somehow appropriate given that Mellencamp music draws from a deep well of old American music forms.

Mellencamp played a choice of songs that came from various points in his career. He started with Authority Song and closed with R.O.C.K. In The U.S.A. Though he told the audience that he "didn't like to look back" he included a fair number of his better known career songs alongside some more recent songs. He did make the point that he had been asked by a fan on the Dublin's street to play Cherry Bomb and said that while he doesn't normally "do requests" this request was asked for so sincerely that he played it solo acoustically. He open with the full band which had expanded, after a couple of songs, to include violinist Miriam Sturm as well as keyboards and accordion player Troye Kinnett. They are all musicians who have played with Mellencamp previously, some are long time veterans like guitarists Mike Wanchic and Andy York who, with the dynamic rhythm section of John Gunnell and Dane Clark, are the perfect band to deliver Mellencamp's memorable songs in a cohesive, powerful set.

It was nine songs in before Mellencamp spoke to the audience. He thanked us for coming and then played an acoustic set that included Save Some Time To Dream which he said was some advice his father had given him. He also remarked about the young dangerous looking young men he saw in his travels but that the grey haired person sitting beside was probably a more dangerous prospect. At 60 Mellencamp is still looks pretty dangerous himself and he gives a sterling performance which is much appreciated by the very supportive audience, most of whom would undoubtably be long time fans judging from the response.

Mellencamp is very much his own man and records and plays his music exactly the way he wants too. He balances the acoustic songs, which often started solo then had the accordion and violin join him, which added to the power of the subtly of those song as against the full force rocking roots anthems. He included favourites Jack And Diane, Paper In Fire, Pink Houses, Walk Tall and Small Town. Songs that sit seamlessly alongside more recent songs like The West End, No One Cares About Me and  , a song that he told us was a true story about a night out with his son that ended with a fight. 

Though some still regard Mellencamp as standing in Bruce Springsteen's shadow, this night proved that Mellencamp is very much his own man with the charisma, songs, voice and band to deliver a memorable live experience that satisfied on many levels.

Review by Stephen Rapid, Photography of off-screen image and live photograph by Karl Tsigdinos