Stream: Celtic Connections 2
Celtic Connections has continued its virtual festival (see my previous article) in a very smooth and technically excellent manner. Indeed there have been envious comments from other online folk music providers as to the quality of the recordings. One reason is of course money and time. Since Celtic Connections sensibly decided to be virtual in October 2020, they have used their considerable resources to record a very good series of concerts. However although technically excellent they clearly are recordings and of course done in advance of the festival dates so lack not only an audience but the feeling that they are part of the same event. Maybe this is inevitable in this virtual form but when I compare them with some of the best online folk events, like ‘Folk on Foot’, which was broadcast live with musicians streaming direct from their homes, they seemed to have more life.
The other problem is a question of taste and musical form. Celtic Connections is a great music festival, but was it or is it a folk festival? I know the old Louis Armstrong quote "I ain't never heard a horse sing"! But this doesn't solve the problem- the truth is Celtic Connections is much wider than a traditional folk festival, it has folk rock, folk jazz, world music, big bands and this year Bemis covering Black and ethnic minority music, as well as traditional music. I have no problem with this remit, indeed when I was an MEP back in 1996 I hosted the first world music conference in the European Parliament and listened to an amazing variety of World Music. Ironically the online festival may increase the interest in this format, since if you buy a festival pass for the whole festival you can sample all the concerts over the festival as I have been doing, whereas in a live festival with clashing events on the same evening you tend to choose the music you know. Maybe there is a lesson here for Donald Shaw, the festival organiser. Why not record all live concerts and make them available for a month afterwards, for a fee of course? This would allow us all to sample the differing music across the festival and continue Celtic Connections world-wide audience. Of course there is a danger that people may choose the virtual festival over the real one, particularly in a Covid world where travel seems more dangerous! Indeed there is some evidence from the opera world that streaming live performances to cinemas or direct to TVs tends to reduce live attendances. These are all factors to consider in a post Covid world.
I watched a range of concerts over the opening few days and top of my list was Karine Polwart's ‘Come Away In’ concert, set in the splendid setting of Glasgow City Hall in George Square. (Tommy Sheridan always wanted the Scottish Parliament based there!). Karine introduced it beautifully and explained the title came from a Burns song she has adapted but exemplified the welcoming spirit of traditional music which Scotland shared in welcoming refugees and asylum seekers. Her concert was aided by a splendid set of musicians, including Rab Noakes singing a very political song in broad Scots, Rab always protests when I call him a folk singer but tonight he showed he certainly could be! Eddi Reader opened up with a song ‘Maid of the Loch’, written to help raise funds for the paddle steamer on Loch Lomond, Findlay Napier and his musicians played some lovely music and Siobhan Miller has a fine traditional voice and sang that great song 'The King’s Shilling' by Ian Sinclair and an old miners song ‘A Pound a Week Rise’ by Ed Pickford, from the 1960s when a pound was worth quite a lot! Overall it was a very nice concert in a lovely setting but again with more perfection than passion.
The Shooglenifty concert certainly promised more noise with the folk-rock style of this Scottish big folk band which has been going remarkably for 30 years and can still fill an empty concert room very effectively. They were backed by RANT, a group of four women fiddlers who gave a lively recital of traditional and contemporary tunes, including Dick Gaughan's version of ‘Westin Winds’. They were followed by the Paul McKenna Big Band with greater numbers than his usual five-member line-up and his singing certainly shows the influence of Dick Gaughan, one of the band’s producers of their records. Traditional music concluded the session with the lovely voice of Fiona Hunter and a four-strong backing group. Fiona, after 10 years as the lead singer and cellist in Malinky, has been making a career as a soloist and tonight reminded us what a fine singer she is, opening with ‘A Sailor's Life’ and closing with ‘My Plaidy is Awa’.
