What this session lacked was someone to manage it. With no one to introduce the artists, fiddler Emma Sweeney and her accompanist Matheu Watson on guitar, plunged into their too-brief set. Sweeney’s passion and energy came out with every note, every sly scrape of emphasis on the strings, and every beautiful flourish. She bent into her music, nearly dancing in her chair, while Watson supported and enhanced each measure perfectly. They put on a wonderful set and left the audience wanting more than the promise of a new CD (out in a month or so).
The afterglow of that stunning performance kept the audience happy for what should have been the normal duration of a break, and then time passed, and some more time passed, and with no emcee to keep them focused on the stage, the people stopped being an audience and turned into a crowd, which got louder and less interested in music.
The “third half” eventually began. Allan MacDonald and Griogair Labhruidh took their places on the stage, tuned their pipes, and lit into their first set. The crowd turned back into an audience, whooping and cheering. Then came a long break while the duo explained what they had played, first in Gaelic and then in fragmented English, with the helpful audience supplying a variety of word choices that more or less meant the same thing. The energy generated by the pipe tunes began dissipating during a digression into the date of a keening song; chatter commenced, and never quite vanished. As the performance continued, cell phones appeared, people drifted into their conversations, both in person and via texts. Despite some beautiful playing and singing, this third half never quite came together. An exciting pipe tune or emotive Gaelic song would get the audience going, but then the magic would slip away during a halting set break or missed lyric. There were several flashes of brilliance, such as Griogair’s keening song, Allan’s piping, and a delightful whistle duet. Griogar’s last two songs were a reminder of how powerful of an entertainer he truly is.
Submitted by Catherine Keegan
Links to the artists’ websites:
emmasweeneyfiddle.com
www.matheuwatson.com
griogairsmusic.webs.com
