Transatlantic sessions - 2/2/2016

It's always guaranteed to be brilliant - how could it fail? Amongst the sixteen members of the TS troupe are a number that I would travel to see if it was only them playing; the band leaders, Aly Bain and Jerry Douglas fall into that category as do the two Celtic sings Karen Matheson and Cara Dillon. Michael McGoldrick also who is the best pipes and whistles man around. Then you always get to see some new people who you haven't even heard of before and they usually proved pretty special. This time round it was a male duo who looked a sang a bit like a 21st century folkie version of the Everley Brothers and who pushed the boundaries of this Celtic/Appalachian music fest by singing a brilliant version of 'Wish You Were Here' AND an explosive female singer from North Carolina called Rhiannon Giddes formerly with the Carolina Chocolate Drops AND a banjo-playing singer of old country songs called Joe Newberry. I'd pretty much go and see any of them in concert too. At the centre of this maelstrom of music with constant changes of singer and band (the number of musicians on stage varies between one and sixteen) is the effortless and mesmerising fiddle playing of Aly Bain and the beautiful slide and dobro of Jerry Douglas. Highlights for me from this show were the second song from Karen Matheson which was a Burns thing, those mournful songs she sings bring tears to my eyes, some tunes early on from Aly Bain, the lullaby that Phil Cunningham wrote, Cara Dillon doing the amazing 'Shotgun Down the Avalanche', the second half songs from Joe Newberry (one was called 'The Cherry River Line'), the aforementioned 'Wish You were Here' from The Milkcarton Kids, all of the Rhiannon Giddes songs and the encore which was a tribute to David Bowie with all the singers mixing it up on 'It Ain't Easy'. This is actually a Ron Davies song beautifully covered by Claudia Lennear a long time ago but apparently Bowie also did a cover of it. Those are just the highlights that come to mind but there wasn't a flat moment and I'd go back tonight and watch it all again if I could.