Review Date: January 17 – February 3, 2013 Review By: Paul Kerr Location: Glasgow, Royal Concert Hall It was 20 years ago that Celtic Connections was conceived, allegedly as a way of filling up dead time in Glasgow’s Royal Concert Hall in the dreary dark days, following the Christmas period. A truly Celtic festival at that time, all of the events were held in the concert hall with the programme stating: “…the emphasis is on Celtic folk groups and singers, modern Celtic art, the art of conversation, a fashion show and a number of ceilidhs…” 35,000 folk duly attended, an astonishing number for a new festival event lasting a fortnight. Fast track to Celtic Connections 2013 and over 100,000 hardy festival-goers saw shows in 20 different venues from 2,100 artists, while the festival has expanded to include an innovative schools programme. Apart from the Edinburgh Festival and its associated Fringe, Celtic Connections is now firmly established as Scotland’s premier cultural shindig and as its focus, unlike Edinburgh, is firmly on roots music, it’s well deserving of some investigation. Aside from its purely statistical growth into the behemoth it has become, Celtic Connections has also grown in breadth and vision over the years to the extent that eyebrows have been raised on occasion at the inclusion of some artists, what price Tom Jones for example. Well, he’s Welsh but when he appeared he was billed as part of that year’s gospel theme and had recently released an album of gospel songs, so the connections part certainly fitted. And so with musicians from across the world now regularly appearing, it’s fair to say that the festival is a way of celebrating a home-grown culture and its relationship with indigenous music from around the globe. Encompassing music from Asia, Africa, Europe and the Americas, it’s perhaps a perfect example of what was termed in the 1980s as world music and for a fortnight, Glasgow is the centre of that world. The Americana strand of this world vision has been apparent from the start when the McGarrigle sisters played back in 1994; however over the years this element has grown to the extent that one could see a gig a day and each and every one would be a roots-type artist from the States. Bluegrass, folk, blues, hillbilly, all are catered for. Furthermore for any such intrepid gig-goer, there would be an abundance of choice with decisions to be made-who to see, who to pass on, small intimate show or 3,000 capacity venue? I managed to catch a few shows in various venues sticking to artists I knew and admired, a snapshot if you like. However the list of those I didn’t see included The Be Good Tanyas, Eric Bibb, Mary Chapin Carpenter, Jerry Douglas, Little Feat and Martha Wainwright-names I’m sure that are familiar to most Maverick readers. The first show was in the Old Fruitmarket, a venue that has supplanted the Royal Concert Hall as the showcase for all that is good about Celtic Connections, with the BBC televising a selection of artists performing there. The occasion was the Scottish debut of Canadians, Petunia & the Vipers, a band who bridge that unbridgeable gap between Hank Williams and David Lynch, on record at least. With an audience of around 1000, Petunia (real name R. Fortugno) spooked us with some lonesome yodelling as he drew from their eponymous album of last year and the crowd seemed bewitched. However with a band that includes members of the late Ray Condo’s rockabilly combo, it wasn’t too big a surprise to see them cutting loose mid-set with a brace of energetic rhythm ‘n’ blues numbers, including a cracking rendition of Little Willie John’s I’m Shakin’, which saw some jitterbugging in the aisles. It was easy to see why Phil Alvin of The Blasters has been quoted as saying: “Petunia and the mother****ing Vipers, one of the best bands in the world today, of any kind.” Support band on the night was the energetic Woody Pines, who paved the way for Petunia with their railroad and hobo tales and a particularly fine rendition of Satisfied And Tickled Too. Four days later and it was off to Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum to see the Cowboy Junkies and John Murry. One of the many sold out shows this year, the choice of this Edwardian edifice, a massive red sandstone building with cavernous galleries opening out from a central hall, is testament to the boldness of the Celtic Connection spirit. Unfortunately, a massive high vaulted marble space does not make for good rock music and coupled with poor seating arrangements meant that both acts struggled with the sound while most of the audience had only a limited view of the low temporary stage. For Murry, this was particularly difficult. Touring to promote his tremendous 2012 album, THE GRACELESS AGE, he and his three-piece band attacked the songs with a Neil Young-like ferocity, but for the most part they were dwarfed by the space and defeated by the sound problems. He triumphed with his closing song however, Little Coloured Balloons, which recounts his near-fatal encounter with heroin, saw him forsake his guitar and deliver a heartrending rendition, which managed to be both spellbinding and audible. It was gratifying to see a queue of folk after the show at his merchandising table and hopefully when he returns, it will be in a small club setting where I reckon he’d set the stage on fire. The Cowboy Junkies suffered from the sound problems also with the bass and drums reverberating around the stone canyons of stuffed elephants and dinosaur bones. However in their quieter moments they overcame this and delivered a fine stately set that included a brace of songs from their recent four piece Wilderness releases, along with the expected gems from the Trinity Sessions, with Misguided Angel being a particular highlight. Had it not been for the venue this would have been a wonderful night. Come the weekend, it
