Bevy of bands serves up sampling of Celtic music
CONCERT REVIEW /
It was possible to spend a couple of hours at the 30th annual Dublin Irish Festival Friday evening and catch at least three bands with Celtic roots, but not one of them Irish.
Natalie MacMaster and Donnell Leahy — she hails from Nova Scotia and he is from Ontario — performed on the largest Dublin Stage. Meanwhile, the smaller Irish Thunder Stage featured Le Vent du Nord, a Quebec band showcasing Canada’s Breton tradition. Soon thereafter, Scottish Celtic rock band Skerryvore burned on the Celtic Rock Stage.
The three represented a sampling of Celtic culture, whose influence is found primarily today in the British Isles, Brittany, Galicia and Canada.
MacMaster plays Cape Breton-style fiddle music, evolved from the traditions of Scottish settlers centuries ago. She stuck relatively close to her roots. The dance tunes that MacMaster and husband Leahy served up were not so far from ones heard in a bar in Ireland or Scotland. The group mixed its set with a few waltzes and ballads, full of emotion and still a bit of swing.
That they included bass and drums would have been not the least distracting if not for the sound mix, which allowed the bass drum to pound at an annoying volume.
Le Vent du Nord as ably represented another strain of that heritage, the Celtic music native to the northwest coast of France that accompanied settlers to Canada centuries ago. Its distinct interpretation was given a refresher course by 19th century Irish immigrants who settled among the Bretons.
Le Vent, who played the festival first in 2014, showcased both the French and Irish sides. With bouzouki, hurdy gurdy, accordion and fiddle, the group presented music that not only had a rich, exotic sound but was familiar enough during the dance numbers to inspire Irish step dancing from a couple of talented youngsters.
Skerryvore took the stage with an ominous tone, the product of rock instruments combined with Celtic staples including tin whistle and Highland pipes. The group delivered frantic dance sets as well as emotive waltzes that echoed the tradition well. It changed it up, though, with country-sounding ballads, a mash-up of club funk and Celtic, and a new song that would sit comfortably in a 1970s Journey record that left its heritage behind to varying success.
This writer’s Irish Festival evening finished with We Banjo 3, a genuine Irish band that was a revelation during the group’s festival debut in 2013. For a 30th anniversary first night, the festival offered no such milestone with new talent, but We Banjo 3’s performance on the big stage was its own watershed.
With a set that integrated bluegrass, included horns and covered a Jackson 5 song, the band’s members seemed something like rock stars at the festival, the audience spilling way into the lawn outside the huge tent.