Rab Noakes and Friends at Celtic Connections Celtic 2012

The last time I saw Rab play a gig ( at the Oran Mor Glasgow, review on my blog) the venue was not so busy, so it was good to see a full house for him tonight at Celtic. 

Friends of Rab’s joined him on stage. Rod Clements of Lindisfarne sang Turn a Deaf Ear with Rab.  Jimmy McGregor who was on Scottish television music shows in the 60s, talked of the Skiffle groups and he sang Mormond Breas and Freight Train with Rab. Noakes sang some of his older songs such as Eden’s Flow, Turn a Deaf Ear and Clear Day. He also performed a selection of his newer songs. 

Noakes sang his very deep Gently Does It when he talked about all those artists he’d lost in the past year, including Gerry Rafferty. Lyrics, ‘You’ve been n the road so long, Building a highway to take you home.’ Sang Noakes in Living in the Past, ‘The past is a nice place to visit but I wouldn’t want to live there. Old dreams tie you down.’ Nostalgia also came up in his song Memories.

He always includes one older song and tonight it was the classic Bye Bye Blackbird with Frazer on harmonica.

In between the songs Noakes talked about the story behind his songs. Noakes lets the songs come to him and he doesn’t force anything. He understands the meaning and depth of the songs he interprets and for him it’s all about the narrative. Noakes also talked about the movies that have inspired his work, such as 'Midnight Cowboy' inspiring his song 'I'm Walking Here.'

For his encore song he sang Dylan’s Mississippi. Many of his songs have strong blue grass and Americana influences. Rab has drawn on his Scottish Fife roots and taken on board American artists that he grew up with. I thought about how our music went over to America and then bounced back here! 

Rab took to the stage at the Strathclyde Suite concert hall 31st January. I was wishing there was a ‘Best of’ album of Noakes songs! http://www.go2neon.com/rab-noakes.htm

SET LIST

First Half

Wait a Minute

Slippin Away

What are you doing here?

Turn a Deaf Ear

Meet me on the corner

Eden’s Flow

Seeing is Believing

Mormond Breas

Freight Train

Living in the Past

One Dog Barks

Second Half

Gently Does it

No More Time

I’m Walkin’ here

Song to the Siren

Sleepless nights

Bye Bye Blackbird

Absense

Clear day

Wrong joke

Fallen Ones

Long Dark Night

A Day Away from here

Mississippi

A Brighter Blue

'Manran' at Celtic Connections 2012

Mànran entertained us with a fun set of tunes at the Late Sessions stage for the BBC Radio at Celtic Connections 2012 on Thursday 2nd February. Manran is a young Scottish band whose style of playing incorporates Gaelic traditions, Scottish folk music and rock  The members of the band are Norrie MacIver (guitar/vocals), Gary Innes (accordion), Ewen Henderson (fiddle/pipes), Calum Stewart (flutes/uilleann pipes), Ross Saunders (bass) and Scott Mackay (drums). The band made No 6 in the UK indie chart and in the Scottish Singles chart with their first single Latha Math.  http://manran.co.uk/

Piper Fred Morrison performed at Celtic Connections 2012

Scottish piper Fred Morrison performed a very enjoyable set of Scottish tunes at Celtic Connections 2012, the Late Sessions stage for the BBC Radio on Tuesday 31st January with Tim O'Brien. Morrison plays the Great Highland Bagpipes, the bellows-blown reel pipes, the Irish Uileann pipes, and the low whistle. He is one of the world's leading pipers and is a renowned composer of music for the bagpipes. His father taught him through the traditional method of canntairachd, the sung vocables used to convey pipe music before notation. "I hear that singing in my head every time I play."  He has played with Clan Alba with Dick Gaughan and also with Capercaille. He co-arrange the music for the film Rob Roy.  In 2006 he formed the Fred Morrison Band with Paul Jennings, Duncan Lyall, Douglas Miller and Innes Watson. Morrison's album Outlands was released in 2009.http://www.fredmorrison.com/

Madison Violet at Celtic Connections 2012

Two Canadian girls took to the Late Sessions stage for the BBC Radio 3 show hosted by Mary Kennedy at Celtic Connections Glasgow 2012, on Tuesday 31^st January after their sold out ABC gig. They sang their song The Ransom off their 2009 third album No Fool for Trying, which won the John Lennon Songwriting Award. They spoke of what a fabulous event Celtic was and how lucky we were to have it. I was impressed with the quality of their songs and their bright artistic sound.
Their 2011 follow-up album The Good in Goodbye has received major attention.  http://www.madisonviolet.com/
http://www.celticconnections.com/