Thea Gilmore, supported by Janice Burns & Jon Doran @ Celtic Connections Strathclyde Suite, Glasgow Royal Concert Hall – 29th January 2024
Sorry – no way am I not going to include Burns & Doran in the headline, so darn good was their slot. They played their socks off and it showed. Mind you, Ms Gilmore was expletively brilliant too, making for a second beezer night at Celtic Connections.
Part of the posh new block of venues, OK, 1990, the Strathclyde Suite is upstairs and around the corner from the main auditorium, or indeed from where, earlier in the day, I had caught the Danny Kyle Open Stage. Indulge me; it’s integral to the story. So let’s go there first. Danny Kyle was an enthusiast, a Paisley musician with a passion for live music. an important musician in the revival of Scottish traditional music in the 60s. Whilst his own footprint was small, a couple of records, his legacy has been huge. Dying at only 59, he started the open stage at Celtic Connections, the one that bears his name. From 1998, the year of his death, it has been kept alive, and is the opportunity for the unsigned and uncelebrated to get a decent shout. Every day, six artists or bands get a platform, with a “winner” later chosen.
Today we got a diverse mix, ranging from string quartets to doughty club and pub veterans. Haver Quartet were up first, a string quartet from Edinburgh, with a quirky fusion of some slightly jazzy tropes, with folky fumes wafting in for good measure. With the viola player of Bengali stock, some Indian classical music also strayed in, making for a beguiling and impressive mix. Next up Arthur Coates and Kerran Cotterell, on fiddle and guitar. Familiar name? Yup, Coates’ Trapdoor To Hell was in the running for the MG Alba album of the year awards, the Trads, last year. He’s good, a Shetlander adept on fiddle in just about any style, and a dab hand, um foot, feet, for what he calls “podorythmie”, aka Quebecois foot stomping. Cotterell provided some more than competent guitar, and showed the old art of scat singing is not dead.
Brevity insists barely more than a nod to Justine Beverley, who gave us some franco-australian country songs, and Venus As A Boy, a singer-songwriter from Edinburgh. With a wry run of patter and some striking trews, he is currently working with Adam Holmes, and may be one to watch. Lastly, a tremendous explosion of classy Glaswegiana/country and west-end, call it what you will, from the duo of Bartok Thins. Inescapably veterans, their experience and polish showed, the guitar of Peter Lennon an admirable foil for the astonishingly powerful vocal of Helen Frater Lennon. All original material, it was captivating, and a reminder, to all the youngsters ahead of them. as to the power of professionally plugging away at your strengths. Bravo!
With time running short, it was just up a stair and around a corner to find the queue for the main event. With first come first served seating, few prisoners were taken as punters poised for their plum perch. Second row! Not bad, and a blether with my neighbours as we awaited the curtain. Timings ever prompt, bang on 8 and Janice Burns and Jon Doran were with us. He, a tall and self-deprecating wit, guitar and voice, she, a wee bit shorter, pleased to be home, mandolin and voice. As well as being each very strong vocalists, and adept musicians, the contrast between his slightly scared Englishman in Glasgow and her “back hame” vibe proved enticing. A strong set of songs drawn from the tradition showed off each their strengths and they extinguished any idea that trad. arr. couple duos can be sometimes a tad twee. Not when they are this good. They won the Danny Kyle award, see above, last year and have come a hell of a way since, with their 2022 album, No More The Green Hills, a favourite in these pages. With a couple of Ewan MacColl songs: “a true Scot,” pause, “from Salford,” quipped Doran, featured, with his Song Of The Fishgutters especially effective, Burns competently steered her vocal around the tongue-twisting lyric. If then totally unable to say “connections”, whenever she needed to. Which was often.
Songs seemed mainly to feature livestock, whether fish, birds or foxes, aptly, as, another Doran comment, they both vegetarians. And if lyrics were around poaching, they endeavoured to get across the point of view of, in one instance, and with humour, the poor hare involved. A parting thought was how refreshing it was and is to hear mandolin getting such a prominent placement in their often quite complex arrangements, it taking some skill for Doran to place his guitar and bouzouki around it. High bar for Gilmore then!
It was a noticeably nervous Thea Gilmore who climbed onto the stage. With a piano and a range of guitars to choose from, attention was also drawn to a console, placed strategically close to her microphone stand. Strapping on a big and shiny green Gretsch, she started off with a fusion of her old with new, seguing This Girl Is Taking Bets, from 2001, with Nice Normal Woman from last October’s eponymous release. The contrast between the acerbic scattergun delivery of the former, with the striking spoken word of the latter was exemplary; I hesitate to call it rap, mainly as her measured diction, and accent, generally preclude that definition, but I guess it was. And, for those familiar with her back-story, also very moving.
Moving to an acoustic guitar, the set hovered between old faithfuls and newer songs, cleverly making them a continuum, even where the styles differ, which often they did, not that we cared. She described how she had researched her audience, through social media, as to what they wanted to hear, gratified that it was a mix of old and the very new. Her playing us some new got maybe the warmest reception, not least as she got to play with her kit. Apologising that the new album was band heavy, whereas tonight she was alone, this proved no obstacle, as she loop-pedalled a full band and backing vocals into her performance, with the shiny black console being an Alesis strike multipad. This meant that, with a drumstick, she could swiftly switch between samples and rhythms. It was almost as much fun to watch as to listen, and she was certainly having fun with it too. Repeatedly telling us that to start a tour in Glasgow is the best, she was certainly off to a braw start.
Moving to piano, I could suddenly see how and why she had been chosen to provide the vocals for a lost and found set of Sandy Denny songs, Don’t Stop Singing. Whilst not a song from that album, it was the new The Chance, her whole manner and tone, as well as her keyboard style, oozing pure Denny. An achingly open love song, it was wonderful, but, ever impatient, it was back then to guitar she hastened, for the first of two covers. Blended into the styles of two versions, she started Cyndi Lauper’s Girls Just Wanna Have Fun in the slow sadness of the Greg Laswell version, ahead of switching to full banger, audience bvs included, of the original.
The new album featured a lot, understandably, she making reference to the range, let’s say, of reviews, relishing the description of “self-indulgent twaddle” one writer had given it. “So I’m going to play plenty of self-indulgent twaddle,” and she did. Except it was neither. Unravel Me and Ride On, with another “rap” embedded therein were definitely highlights.
An anecdote about zombies led to the second cover, her version of Bad Moon Rising having been used in a film that introduced her to a younger audience. Asking a question as to whether there were any zombies present tonight, this was skating maybe a tad close to the slightly older audience I would have expected for her, but, nonetheless, it is a corking deconstruction and a reminder of quite how well she does reinterpretation. All to quickly, via a poignant song at the piano, dedicated to Jo Cox, we were getting towards the (early) Monday night curfew. Bidding us a fond farewell, after a further couple of fan selected favourites, she exited stage right, but wasn’t going to get away with that, no, Sir! Coming back, it was for She Speaks In Colours, another master, sorry, mistress class in melody and mood, and the perfect conclusion to a really rather special show.
See what I mean?
Thea Gilmore online: Website / Facebook / X (formerly Twitter) / Instagram
Janice Burns & Jon Doran online: Website / Facebook / Instagram
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