Secret Sisters@ The Sugar Club, Dublin - Tues 24th Jan 2012

Sisters Laura and Lydia Rogers are no longer a secret judging by the sell-out audience in the Sugar Club on a Tuesday night. The siblings went straight into their first song of a 17 song set and it was obvious that they have a growing confidence and a more astute awareness of an audience. Tonight the fifties-style dresses were replaced by jeans with black tops but the between song banter was very much a part of the act, as are the asides about having to share so much time together and the minor conflict that ensues from that. Laura how happy they were to be back in Dublin.

Laura said that because of the song Tennessee Me many people believed that they were from there rather than from Muscle Shoals, Alabama. Their home state was the subject of one of a number of self-written songs due to be included on their next album that they previewed in the show. The songs included King Cotton, the aforementioned Alabama tribute, Bad Habit, River Jordan, Little Again and a song written and sung by Laura that was a direct reaction to weather disasters in their home state. That song Tomorrow Will Be Kinder was  one of the evening’s highlights. They of course included a lot of covers, songs that they loved and heard growing up and singing on their front porch. Songs their father loved like Why Baby Why (a song  they stopped in the middle due to a distorted guitar and then faultlessly resumed once it was fixed), Am I That Easy To Forget, Your Cheatin’ Heart as well as a song that Laura had convinced Lydia to sing onstage, it was one of a number of songs that they often sang offstage. You Send Me worked well and got a great reaction - however she said that another song they occasionally did for themselves Careless Whisper would remain that way. They also did Do You Love An Apple? and revealed that when they started singing it neither they nor their father knew what “bugger all” meant. They do now. A highlight for this listener was the Everly Brothers (who they said they have often been compared to) Devoted To You.

As expected the harmonies throughout were sublime and the simple guitar accompaniment, shared by both sisters was effective. I do feel that in the future, after the release of the new album, a couple of additional players, double bass and lap steel perhaps?, would add that extra dimension. But it was a great night that showed that music in its most basic form of voice and guitar (and little light-hearted dialogue) can captivate an audience. The sisters have grown and learned from the large amount of touring they have done and their new album should take them to another level.

Review by Stephen Rapid. Photography by Ronnie Norton

Gillian Welch @ The Grand Canal Theatre, 17th Nov. 2011

Was the Gillian Welch concert one of the gigs of a lifetime? Yes. As a fellow audience member said ‘it was as close to perfect as is possible.’ It was an eager audience – tickets had been sold out for ages. After listening to Gillian’s own mix CD Gil and David came onstage at about 8:15 with Gil in her trademark dress and cowboy boots (a look later nicked by – of all people – Taylor Swift) and David in his neat grey suit and a face-concealing Stetson hat he got from James Monroe, Mr Bill Monroe’s son.

They went back to the very first album, Revival, to start the night with Gil’s Tear My Stillhouse Down and the great contrast of Gillian’s rock-solid flat top guitar rythmn playing against David’s intricate picking on his arch-top Epiphone is as characteristic and gorgeous as it always has been. In two 50 minute sets, plus 5 encores they played most of the new album The Harrow and the Harvest and songs from each of the other albums with particularly strong versions of Elvis Presley Blues, Revelator, No One Knows My Name, the still chilling Caleb Meyer and Look at Miss Ohio.

Their version of Six White Horses from the new album was a particular delight with David playing banjo and harmonica while Gil hamboned (used her body as and hands as a percussion instrument) and clog-danced, wryly commenting afterwards that she had intended to learn a fancy new clog-step ahead of the tour, but that ‘it just hadn’t happened’.

The encores raised the evening even higher – which I’d doubted was possible – with cover versions of O Brother’s I’ll Fly Away followed by the Johnny Cash/June Carter stalwart Jackson but culminating in an extraordinary choice, gorgeously played, of Jefferson Airplane’s White Rabbit. It was incongruous and absolutely…perfect.

While Gillian switched between guitar and banjo – and occasionally added harmonica – Dave stayed with his guitar excepting Six White Horses. His playing, particulary in his solos, continues to astound; I sometimes feel he gets himself into beautiful places that it will be impossible to get out of, but each time he resolves the solo and amazes his listeners. They are two halves whose sum really is greater than its parts. Gil’s singing apart from David, as in O Brother, is wonderful and his playing on his solo album and other projects is great, but I feel that they achieve an energy working together that is unique and unsurpassable – and we in the audience were blown away by it in the Grand Canal Theatre last Thursday. What a night!

Review by Sandy Harsch, Photograph by Ronnie Norton

Double Feature. John Mellencamp @ Grand Canal Theatre 28 June 2011

The show started early with Kurt and Ian Markus' gritty and attractive documentary It's About You, shot in hand-held style on grainy Super 8mm film it follows Mellencamp around the States, touring and recording his last album with T-Bone Burnett. It's insightful and visually arresting but perhaps a little long for some of the audience whose attention drifted towards the bar. The show itself, a 22 song set, which ran for almost two hours opened with the sentient voice of Johnny Cash before the curtains opened to reveal three guitarists with electric guitars and a drummer playing a stripped down kit of snare and standing tom and an acoustic bass guitar. The played with a concise power against a theatre backdrop of ancient ruins, which seemed somehow appropriate given that Mellencamp music draws from a deep well of old American music forms.

Mellencamp played a choice of songs that came from various points in his career. He started with Authority Song and closed with R.O.C.K. In The U.S.A. Though he told the audience that he "didn't like to look back" he included a fair number of his better known career songs alongside some more recent songs. He did make the point that he had been asked by a fan on the Dublin's street to play Cherry Bomb and said that while he doesn't normally "do requests" this request was asked for so sincerely that he played it solo acoustically. He open with the full band which had expanded, after a couple of songs, to include violinist Miriam Sturm as well as keyboards and accordion player Troye Kinnett. They are all musicians who have played with Mellencamp previously, some are long time veterans like guitarists Mike Wanchic and Andy York who, with the dynamic rhythm section of John Gunnell and Dane Clark, are the perfect band to deliver Mellencamp's memorable songs in a cohesive, powerful set.

It was nine songs in before Mellencamp spoke to the audience. He thanked us for coming and then played an acoustic set that included Save Some Time To Dream which he said was some advice his father had given him. He also remarked about the young dangerous looking young men he saw in his travels but that the grey haired person sitting beside was probably a more dangerous prospect. At 60 Mellencamp is still looks pretty dangerous himself and he gives a sterling performance which is much appreciated by the very supportive audience, most of whom would undoubtably be long time fans judging from the response.

Mellencamp is very much his own man and records and plays his music exactly the way he wants too. He balances the acoustic songs, which often started solo then had the accordion and violin join him, which added to the power of the subtly of those song as against the full force rocking roots anthems. He included favourites Jack And Diane, Paper In Fire, Pink Houses, Walk Tall and Small Town. Songs that sit seamlessly alongside more recent songs like The West End, No One Cares About Me and  , a song that he told us was a true story about a night out with his son that ended with a fight. 

Though some still regard Mellencamp as standing in Bruce Springsteen's shadow, this night proved that Mellencamp is very much his own man with the charisma, songs, voice and band to deliver a memorable live experience that satisfied on many levels.

Review by Stephen Rapid, Photography of off-screen image and live photograph by Karl Tsigdinos