LUCKY Perth was the confluence of separate tours by two of the most thrilling live acts to emerge from the Scottish scene in the past decade – but why was there not a flood of music lovers to Perth Concert Hall for this electrifying one-off double bill?
First on stage were the three musical maestros who interrupt their busy schedules to come together as Lau.
Each Lau member – Aidan O’Rourke (fiddle), Kris Drever (guitar and vocals) and Martin Green (accordion) – is a multi-award winner, and since forming Lau in 2004 they’ve gathered armfuls of plaudits, including three consecutive years of being crowned ‘Best Group’ at the BBC Radio Two Folk Awards.
Their strength partly lies in the pool of knowledge on which they draw. There’s also super on-stage chemistry between the three, a warm winning way with their audience and a jaw-dropping musical creativity which rockets traditional music into outer space.
The Lau trademark of the slow build into soaring crescendos was put to brilliant use in the wonderful concert hall acoustics. A couple of gremlins on the opening night of the Lau tour only added colour to the proceedings.
Post interval, the trailblazers in the Scottish supergroup genre, Session A9, took over where Lau had left over, and then some!
Seven top-drawer musicians in full flow produced more energy than the massed numbers of Scotland’s growing of wind farms – and the fine collection of male species on stage was far more pleasing on the eye than the turbine abominations!
The ‘boys’ may or may not take offence if they are described as ‘improving with age’. Ten years after Session A9 was conceived through informal music sessions up and down the A9, and having had some members come and go in that time, Session A9 has matured into a lean, mean music-making machine with a fine turn of banter.
Much of their material of scintillating jigs and reels is home-grown – notably from fiddlers Charlie McKerron, Gordon Gunn and Adam Sutherland – yet some of the concert highlights were covers, including John Martyn’s ‘One for the Road’, Jackson Browne’s ‘These Days’ and Dylan’s ‘Dark Eyes’ (such impressive singing of these by guitarist Marc Clement – more from vocals from him, please!); and a fantastic double header of contrasting Gordon Duncan tunes (Belly Dancer and The Sleeping Tune) which underlined the versatility of both composer and performers.
As this tumult of traditional music came to a close, the final wave of enjoyable excellence saw Lau return to the stage for a full-on set of reels.
(Session A9 are driving off to points far from Perthshire but Lau on tour can be tracked down to the Tolbooth in Stirling on May 21 then from June 17-20 they go straight up the A9 to Aviemore for the Insider Festival.)
As the Kronos Quartet prepare to fly into Glasgow for their much-anticipated residency this weekend, there was just a hint here of what might have happened had these esteemed celebrators of eclecticism taken a detour via Session A9’s rehearsal studio.
The four fiddlers at the heart of Session A9 don’t have a string quartet’s pitch selection at their disposal, of course, but by using a wealth of tone variation and nuance of attack they produce a richness of sound that can verge on the symphonic, let alone a chamber group, and their embracing of Steve Reich-like minimalism alongside the Scottish tradition gives tunes such as The Real Mackay Wedding a definite Kronos-like flavour. All sorts of flavours – from bagpipe-like tone and phrasing to bluegrass mandolin breaks – combine in Session A9’s music, and as they celebrate their tenth anniversary there’s a sense of the group raising an already high quality output onto another level and reaching a new maturity. It’s a shame the same can’t be said for their onstage banter but hey, boys on the road will be boys on the road.
I’ll forgive their wittering, though, for the sheer lift of their melodies and arrangements that offer heaps of imagination but no over-playing – David Robertson manages somehow to be forcefully discrete on percussion – and that pass the focus naturally and very effectively from fiddles to piano and guitar, ensuring a variety of mood that can change from reflective to mesmerising to downright barnstorming but always with a certain eloquence.
There is no doubt that Session A9 are your men when it comes to pounding out a high-octane tune, but they are also wonderfully creative arrangers who make dynamic use of their line-up of four fabulous fiddlers, bolstered by acoustic guitar, bodhran, snare drum (for a touch of skiffly momentum) and the keyboard playing of Brian McAlpine, which provided a pop finish to some of their repertoire.
They folded numerous rogue influences into their set including, at one point, a rhythm'n'blues embellishment to a traditional strathspey, delivered with a bit of a strut by the fiddlers. Purists might quibble but it was an exciting twist on the tradition. Another tune was imbued with gypsy jazz feeling.
Elsewhere, dramatic, stabbing strings were used as a linking device, adding to the sense that the listener was being taken on a journey through each of their medleys. An "unfeasibly happy" tune – one might stretch as far as to call it jaunty – was immediately followed by Gordon Duncan's beautifully mournful Sleeping Tune, led by fiddler Kevin Henderson, then taken up by McAlpine before building to a stirring conclusion.
Cheeky banter and easy-going covers of John Martyn's One For The Road and Jackson Browne's These Days were also dropped into the mix, and support act (and sometime Session A9 member) Kris Drever returned to the stage before the end with a full-on fiddle party which ended with a haphazard stage invasion.
Session A9 is Charlie 'Capercaillie' McKerron's brainchild, formed with friend Gordon Gunn. The line up has changed since I last saw them, when Kris Drever was with them. Tonight Charlie and Gordon shared the stage with Adam 'Peatbog' Sutherland and Kevin 'Fiddlers' Bid' Henderson on fiddles; Tim Edey on melodeon/guitar, Marc Clement on guitar, Brian McAlpine on keyboards and Capercaillie's 'Chimp' standing in on percussion.
Quite how they all fitted on Hammersmith's tiny stage I don't know, the eight of them obviously taking a leaf out of Salsa Celtica's book, and shoe horning themselves into every available space, leaving Kevin Henderson sometimes only visible by the end of his bow appearing from the wings. Not that it impaired the sound at all; the end of the first set ending in the marvellously majestic 'Dirty B', the kind of gloriously epic sound you used to hear in cinemas to demonstrate Dolby Stereo- usually accompanied by scenes of snow capped mountain peaks in remote places. Just inspiringhelped no doubt by having Cammy Young on sound!
The new album is called 'Bottlenecks and Armbreakers' and features new tunes written both by band members and up and coming Scottish musicians, as well as a couple of the late great Gordon Duncan's compositions. 'The Sleeping Song', one of the latter, is so beautiful, so haunting, it has the ability to leave you tearful just listening to the cd. Live, it's breathtaking. Search it out, you won't regret it.
So, from the tender 'Sleeping Song' to the jazz like 'Cathal's Magic Fingers', with raucous reels like 'Sporting Paddy' too, it seems Session A9 have all bases covered. The boys in the band all seem to be having as much fun as the audience, with friendly banter between them- as well as quick witted responses to shouts from the audience. For a band a long way from Scotland they made themselves feel right at home…
TAKE the cream of traditional musicians, thrilling arrangements and lashings of verve and sparkle and you'll get something of the flavour of Session A9.
The Highland supergroup, brainchild of Capercaille fiddler Charlie McKerron, kicked off their tour at Fort William's Nevis Centre on Friday. Fiddles are king in Session A9, with McKerron joined by Peatbog Fairies' bow master Adam Sutherland, Gordon Gunn from Wick and Shetland fiddler Kevin Henderson. The line up is completed by percussion from Ian Copeland, Tim Edey on melodeon and guitar, pianist Brian McAlpine and Marc Clement on guitar.
The opening date found the musicians in fine form, showcasing material from new album Bottlenecks and Armbreakers as well as established favourites from debut CD What Road?.
The scene was set with a belting rendition of What Road? opener, ‘The Rizla’, a Charlie McKerron composition which sounded magnificent live, with swooping melody, bright, funky piano and cheeky percussion.
Tunes ranged through innovative arrangements of traditional jigs and reels and contemporary compositions from band members. Tim Edey's ‘Celtic Thunder’ (written for a Swedish sweetheart who apparently left him shortly after its release!) was a highlight, as was his inspiring melodeon style.
Compositions by the late piper Gordon Duncan also featured, including evocative air ‘The Sleeping Tune’. Flashing bows, flourish aplenty and some cool key changes combined to make the set featuring ‘Paella Grande’, Adam Sutherland's ascending masterpiece ‘No More Cages’, and the cracking Ross Ainslie tune ‘The Dirty Bee’ a personal favourite.
As an eight-piece band whose members’ main projects include Capercaillie, the Peatbog Faeries, Boys of the Lough and Fiddlers’ Bid, Session A9 don’t get out as often as their many ardent fans would like. Other commitments have also been the main reason it’s taken them five years to produce a follow-up to their much-loved debut release, What Road? – although ringleader Charlie McKerron breaking his arm last autumn didn’t help the schedule either, an incident now commemorated in the new album’s title, Bottlenecks and Armbreakers.
Session A9’s trademarks have always been both the wealth and balance of their instrumentation – four fiddles ranged against guitars, piano, accordion and drums – aligned to the multi-layered sophistication with which they configure these components, creating a rich panoply of harmony, countermelody, cross-rhythms and complementary textures.
As well as their unbeatably rambunctious jigs, reels and jaggy Balkan-style dance tunes, standout tracks off the new album included a brilliantly strutting set of Strathspeys, brimming with vivacity and flourish, and a magnificently elegiac arrangement of Gordon Duncan’s haunting slow air, ‘The Sleeping Tune’.
………The craic amongst the band, was customarily mighty, launching the album in suitably high-spirited fashion.
Well, what can I say?! This was a great gig. Session A9, though they were without Kris Drever, were brilliant. Energetic fiddle music and tight melodic harmonies were backed up with the great rhythm of Iain Copelands percussion.
The backing was superbly rounded by the never less than ingenious keyboards of Brian McAlpine, who with a jazz style, plays across the musical pulse in the most synergistic and complementary way.
The contrasting fiddle styles of Kevin Henderson, Gordon Gunn and Charlie McKerron, neverthess gel to make a whole that is more than the sum of its parts. The technically accurate, but soulful playing of Kevin Henderson did justice to Gordon Duncan's "Sleeping Tune", which was no mean feat given that this Perth audience was one which clearly new much of, and about, Gordon. Charlie McKerron's playing was light on the bow, skipping, and enthusiastic which did much for me to hear those classic Session A9 tracks "right from the horse's mouth" for the first time!
If you don't know Session A9, you should!
Tighter than James Brown
“One of the best f****** bands I’ve ever seen in my life!”
“The best band to come out of Scotland in 100 years!”
“Their precise, highly expressive fiddle virtuosity was irresistible…”
“An epic musical experience, escalating into peaks of inspiration and glory”
Session A9 are a large combo that come with an awesome reputation, and a membership that reads like the A-Z of certain parts of Scottish music. The big question is whether the A9s are bigger than the sum of their parts? The answer is an emphatic yes. A sheer joy, in fact, direct in the best way, with reels and jigs and the old ways with this music: fine tunesmiths in charge of blistering musicality - a fine final burst of bow-powered adenalin before the festival dimmed its lights for another year.
“Full of joyous abandon, yet synchronised and synergised with craft and care”
Fiddle 2004 Festival, Edinburgh
I reviewed Session A9's debut CD in issue 28, saying that I had expected a bit more from the CD, from a band with such a the line-up. Well I have to say, live, Session A9 are without doubt one of the top bands on the Scottish scene.
Session A9 brings together three top Scottish fiddlers - Charlie McKerron of Capercaillie, Adam Sutherland of Peatbog Fairies and Gordon Gunn - plus some superb accompanists: Kirs Drever (guitar, songs), Iain Copeland (percussion) and the wonderful Sassenach accordeonist Tim Edey.
Session A9 is bursting of energy, with their fiery fiddle arrangements plus lively backing, playing great tunes based on Scottish music, with the occasional song from Kris. Most of all, it is too obvious that these guys are having a tremendous amount of fun on stage, which makes Session A9 the perfect band for festivals and memorable concerts.
The energy and fun of this band simply cannot be bottled on CD - so better go and see them live!