Emmylou Harris/Daniel Lanois 27/5/2014

Daniel Lanois deserves equal billing for this gig although Emmylou may be the bigger name, for his contribution to the album that the tour celebrates (Wrecking Ball), and to the gig itself including the support set. His guitar playing was exemplary all evening, nuanced and complex and beautifully judged. There are some guitarists who change from one expensive guitar to another all through a set and you could argue they are perfectionists and craftsmen and I'm not saying it is a bad thing. There are some who just seem to have an old guitar and can make it do anything as if it is directly wired into their central nervous system. Daniel Lanois is in that category (along with Richard Thompson and Jack White to mention a couple that come to mind). He started off the gig with the other two members of the Emmylou Harris band, Steven Nistor on drums and Jim Wilson on bass. Steven was a superb drummer just about as relaxed as it is possible to be and still keep time. Daniel played pedal steel for a couple of tracks before switching to his trusty guitar. On one of his later tracks in the set I could have closed my eyes and thought it was Neil Young playing. That's as good a compliment as I give. After the interval Emmylou came on and they played all the 'Wrecking Ball' tracks in order. This is my favourite Emmylou album for the combination of the sound (thanks in large part to Lanois)and a simply great set of songs which are mainly covers but covers from the likes of Neil Young, Jimi Hendrix, Bob Dylan, Anna McCarrigle, Gillian Welch and Steve Earle. In addition there are a couple from the Lanois/Harris axis. It is difficult to pick a favourite from the album but live the version of 'Deeper Well' stood out in particular for some amazing guitar from Lanois. His guitar plunged us deeper into the well with astonishing dexterity and feeling. Bravo. I also particularly enjoyed a beautifully paced version of the exemplary title track with more great guitar and stunning singing, 'Every Grain of Sand' for some powerful vocals from Emmylou and 'Going Back to Harlan' just 'cos it's a great song. At the end of the album they added a couple of tracks that were not included on the original album release, both up to scratch for the top quality of the album; 'Still Waters' and 'The Maker'. There was still more to come however as Emmylou picked out a couple of classics from her even backer catalogue for the encore, 'From Boulder to Birmingham' and the incomparable 'Pancho and Lefty'. Sitting in the front row centre that was perfection. A couple more tracks followed a vocal harmony track about lost children and 'Songbird'. I think I was about done by the end of 'Pancho and Lefty' though.

Toumani and Sidike Diabate 26/5/2014

It is widely acknowledged that Toumani Diabate is pretty much as good as it gets as far as kora playing goes. Yesterday's gig showed that his son Sidike is no slouch either. The two of them created kora magic that became a hypnotic blur of fingers and riffs and baselines and waterfalls of notes. The first couple of tracks after Sidikes solo opener gave Sidike the showier role and he could play with extraordinary speed and still throw in some percussive beats on the gourd surface. On the track before the interval Toumani showed his amazing skill with a mesmeric combination of base line and lead that was pure joy to hear. The interplay between the two of them responding to each others riffs was both delightful and breathtaking at times and all through the understanding between the two was total which I suppose you might expect with father and son from a long line of kora players. They played mostly from the new album that with one exception is based on the traditional kora repertoire. That exception is a song called 'Lampedusa' which they finished with as an encore. It was written after the mass drowning of African emigrants and is both beautiful and haunting and stays in the mind long after the gig is finished. Having missed Toumani on a couple of tours because of date clashes I will make sure I don't miss any more. Superb.

Jeff Beck 16/5/14

I normally prepare for a gig by listening to the latest album or at least tuning into the musicians back catalogue. However I came to this gig fresh mainly because I had been at the Seckou Keita/Catrin Finch gig the night before and in any case Jeff Beck doesn't seem to have released anything recently. I also still had the amazing gig from the day before running round in my head so it was a tough task for Jeff Beck but he did pretty well given the circumstances. He first really got my attention about three tracks in when he played 'Little Wing'. You need big guitarist cahones to play a song trademarked by Hendrix and then Clapton but Jeff Beck has those and the skill to back them up. His version owed more to Hendrix than Clapton but was also indisputably Beck and it was superb. A lot of the tracks he played I had heard before although I couldn't put a name to many of them. There were however enough moments of guitar brilliance to make this an enjoyable and impressive gig. The band were excellent musicians; Rhonda Smith a pocket-size bundle of energy on Bass, Nicholas Meier on guitar clearly had a spanish-guitar background and , Jonathan Joseph on Drums was full of drive. The one vocal track during the main part of the show didn't really work as Rhonda's singing voice was not strong enough for the band sound but what did work was the vocal encore when Joss Stone came on and sang a couple of storming power vocals for 'I put a spell on you' followed by 'Rollin' and Tumblin''. I had not seen her before but the Janis Joplin style delivery certainly worked with the Beck guitar and the band's energy. That was a great surprise finale to the gig.

Sekou Keita & Catrin Finch 15/5/2014

Around 150 strings on stage courtesy of two harps and two koras and add two musical maestros and the results were always going to be amazing. On stage at the Borough Theatre at Abergavenny we experienced the swirling, exhilarating fusion of Mandinka and Welsh traditional music and it was mesmerising music from start to finish. I much preferred it to the last Seckou Keita gig I saw around 18 months ago when his beautiful kora playing was muddied and diminished by other instruments and a more populist western fusion sound. This time round the mix of harp and kora was stunning and perfect. They are after all similar instruments in terms of the sounds they can make and the way they are played and the way that the two musicians played off each other and responded was breathtaking at times. The song before the interval was exactly that with Catrin challenging Seckou time and again to mimic her complex leads and of course he did so superbly. The first half was from the album they have recorded but the second half included some new songs and one of them 'Celtic Misty' was one highlight from the concert. It spiralled and circled up from the mists of time. Preceding that song was another special song which may have been 'Ceffylau' from the album. I'll check when the gig has faded a bit. Also memorable were 'Ropert AP Huw meets Nialing Sonko'. and 'Les Bras de Mer' but actually everything was superb. An early contender for gig of the year and a sign to try out some Catrin Finch music.

Tinariwen 5/5/2014

There was an unusual support in the shape of a talk about the Tuareg situation based around quotations of their poetry. It was actually more interesting than it sounds and was a better lead in to the desert groove that some local support act. Last time I saw Tinariwen, Ibrahim took most of the lead guitar and vocal - this time it was just four songs from him and the rest were shared between Abdullah and Elaga. Ibrahim played the most complex rhythms, Abdullah grooves like no-one else and Elaga had slightly more of a Western nuance to his Tuareg licks. There were six of them this time with an additional guitarist, drummer and bassist supporting whichever of the three was on lead duty. When the ecore came round after about an hour and a quarter, Abdullah came out solo and showed his virtuoso guitar skills for the first part of the song with a spanish-style intro that was both subtle and powerful. Tinariwen come in many formats and with different vocalists/guitarists featured but you always leave with sand under your fingernails and dry desert air in your throat.