Music, Music, Music
Jan. 19th, 2008 01:45 pmCeltic Connections continued last night, going to the ABC with ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
neilwilliamson and ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
munchkinstein and friends
Last night started very well, with Lisa Knapp. She was very good; singing and playing trad English folk music with enough interesting arrangements drawing from other musical sources to spice it up but not to obscure the roots, with a beautiful voice and a great delivery.
Lisa was supporting Bellowhead; one of my favouritest bands. They were fantastic for the most part; I don't know what was the matter with the first two numbers, Neil thought maybe the sound balance was off and I thought that the timing wasn't together, which could have been because of the sound. By the third number they clicked and it was all great. As before, everyone who was in any way musical went away humming the last tune they played.
It was a very different experience from the first time I saw them: then, I had heard a couple of streamed tunes and they were mostly new to me and I was totally blown away. This time, I'd played their EP and album to death, and I was familiar with most of what I was hearing. Now I could pick out pieces of the arrangement and enjoy what I was expecting.
Afterwards we went to the pub for a chat and a drink, and then when everyone else was going home I went along to the Central Hotel to maybe go to the Festival Club and otherwise to listen to the musicians playing sessions in the bar and maybe join in if there was a singing room. I got turned back at the door; the tickets were sold out for the Festival Club, and without one you couldn't even get into the bar. I've never before been to a festival where that was the arrangement. I'm still deeply annoyed.
This morning picked up with the Come and Try Fiddle workshop. I've picked up a fiddle maybe once and had no clue, but by the end of the hour, I and everyone else was playing a simple tune, the Scottish children's song, Ally Bally Bee. The teachers run folk music school in Stow college in Glasgow city centre, that I've been meaning to go to for the past couple of years. Neil has offered me the use of his fiddle, so that's me; this year the instrument I'm learning is the fiddle.
And in the dealers' stall in the hall, I found a copy of Billy Bragg's English, Half English, with Distant Shore, for £4. It's not bad; he's not that great a singer, but he's a marvellous songwriter. I prefer the Karen Carey version, it's haunting.
neilwilliamson and munchkinstein and friendsLast night started very well, with Lisa Knapp. She was very good; singing and playing trad English folk music with enough interesting arrangements drawing from other musical sources to spice it up but not to obscure the roots, with a beautiful voice and a great delivery.
Lisa was supporting Bellowhead; one of my favouritest bands. They were fantastic for the most part; I don't know what was the matter with the first two numbers, Neil thought maybe the sound balance was off and I thought that the timing wasn't together, which could have been because of the sound. By the third number they clicked and it was all great. As before, everyone who was in any way musical went away humming the last tune they played.
It was a very different experience from the first time I saw them: then, I had heard a couple of streamed tunes and they were mostly new to me and I was totally blown away. This time, I'd played their EP and album to death, and I was familiar with most of what I was hearing. Now I could pick out pieces of the arrangement and enjoy what I was expecting.
Afterwards we went to the pub for a chat and a drink, and then when everyone else was going home I went along to the Central Hotel to maybe go to the Festival Club and otherwise to listen to the musicians playing sessions in the bar and maybe join in if there was a singing room. I got turned back at the door; the tickets were sold out for the Festival Club, and without one you couldn't even get into the bar. I've never before been to a festival where that was the arrangement. I'm still deeply annoyed.
This morning picked up with the Come and Try Fiddle workshop. I've picked up a fiddle maybe once and had no clue, but by the end of the hour, I and everyone else was playing a simple tune, the Scottish children's song, Ally Bally Bee. The teachers run folk music school in Stow college in Glasgow city centre, that I've been meaning to go to for the past couple of years. Neil has offered me the use of his fiddle, so that's me; this year the instrument I'm learning is the fiddle.
And in the dealers' stall in the hall, I found a copy of Billy Bragg's English, Half English, with Distant Shore, for £4. It's not bad; he's not that great a singer, but he's a marvellous songwriter. I prefer the Karen Carey version, it's haunting.
