Wild Rovers

The Dubliners last night at Cheltenham Town Hall;  well, what can I say?

Cheltenham Town Hall is always a tricky venue. People with dosh tend to get the best seats at the front but they aren’t always the most enthusiastic, so the moderate spenders who are devotees are often found in the centre/back of the hall.

There was applause when the guys walked on stage but not the wild adulation of long-time fans.  It was warm but normal kind of applause.

Banjo Barney McKenna took a while getting to his seat. He is stout with an unruly grey beard, a generous corporation and owlish steel-framed specs perched on the end of his nose beneath a dark peaked hat. I was terrified he would fall over and break a hip.

Once settled with his tenor banjo, he seemed happy enough alongside the others, John Sheahan, Eamonn Campbell, Sean Cannon, the magnificent Barney plus Patsy Whatchorn (vocalist, banjo, percussion) who fitted in like the regular he’s become.

Last night’s performance was different to the impact the Dubliners made on me when I first saw them. I had to be persuaded to go to the gig anyway, as I only knew Black Velvet Band as their “hit” record, and to me, twenty years ago (30 years a-greying – erm them, not me!) they were a bunch of old codgers. But I have always had a thing for de Oirish music and reels so I didn’t have to be persuaded too hard.

Sitting up in the balcony above the stage, we looked down on all these grey heads and thought it might be a pleasant evening.

It turned out to be a stonkingly amazing, foot stamping, hand clapping, choral rabble-rousingly inspiring evening of extraordinary voices, charisma and musicianship.

I was converted.   I got most of their albums.  I played them often.  I have never tired of the Dubliners.   Their music is infectious.  You have no alternative but to join in with the choruses.  On a car journey, everyone ends up singing.  It’s wonderful, bonding stuff.

Which brings me back to their performance last night. It wasn’t electrifying, as that first experience was, it was more wistful – a tribute to the three they have lost… Luke Kelly, Ciaran Bourke, Ronnie Drew but demonstrated that the survivors have lost none of their charm or musicianship.

They staged a beautifully constructed programme of songs backed with photographs of the band throughout their career, with specific tributes and poems to each in turn –including Ronnie with that incomparable voice. Yesterday I called it sandpapered gravel but that’s not really adequate.  Hearing it again in a filmed performance of McAlpine’s Fusiliers, Ronnie was much more black-treacle covered gravel.

My hero of the evening was ‘Banjo’  Barney;   such a beautiful man in his youth with long thick black hair and a beard framing a knowing, handsome face with wicked black eyes. He was never pictured without banjo in hand.  He has a wonderful slow, dry Irish wit.

“This next song will be a solo. An Irish solo. Just de two of us” he nodded towards Eamonn Campbell, amazing guitarist who broke into a Status Quo Deeper and Down rockin stance at one point, the tease – made all the more incongruous by his halo of white hair which made his face look, from a distance, as though it was surrounded by bath bubble lather.

But Barney, oh Barney can play. He plays with a love and a devotion that beggars belief. He plays reels, he sings. He is as fast on the fretboard as he ever was. Ageining hath not withered his finger-picking skills one iota. You have to respect that in a man. I wanted to hug him and whisper “thanks” in his hairy old ear.

Barney McKenna and John Sheahan – who proved his continued virtuosity on the tin whistle – are the only original members left in the band.

And to anyone who might have had a moment’s doubt, I can confirm it is absoutely fine to sing along at a Dubliners’ gig. They welcome it. And if you don’t, well, honestly, there must be something wrong with you.

Which is why I was pleased that the rather stiff Chelters crowd loosened up after Black Velvet Band and realised it was ok to sing along and clap and stamp their feet like the mob in the middle of the hall were doing.

There were whoops and cheers and by the encore, there wasn’t a soul in the place who wasn’t giving Wild Rover their all and then crooning along to the sentimental and very tradition Molly Malone which brought an excellent, exhilarating gig to a sweet, mellow, satisfying close.

I couldn’t resist attaching this.  Have a listen.  Got to love him, haven’t you?  Hope that works.  Embedding disabled.