Transatlantic Sessions - 8 February 2024

The annual TS gigs are always a joy and this one was also our first visit to the Bristol Beacon since it reopened after 6 years closed. The house band was extended formally to include Alison de Groet on banjo and Tatania Hargreaves on fiddle althought they also featured extensively last year. That makes the band eleven strong and of course there were also four guest vocalists. The opening tune was as usual 'Waiting for the Federals' and then the first guest vocalist came on - Lynsey Lou, who was difficult to pigeonhole except to say that she was somewhere on the Americana scale. Kim Carnie was next up and she was the cream of the guests for me. Like a softly spoken version of Karen Matheson, she sang in gaelic and the band were clearly enjoying the songs as was I. Joshua Burnside from Northern Ireland was the third vocalist and his songs and playing were also top notch. Last up was Carlene Carter of that family who brought some country into the occasion. It was interesting to hear four very different vocalists only one of which was 100% in the folky camp. Meanwhile in between the vocalists there were various band tunes with different combinations of musicians. I enjoyed a trio knocking out some great tunes with Alison and Tatania accompanied by Mike McGoldrick and of course Phil Cunningham wrote and led a sad air 'Melody for Eve' with the fiddles prominent. The second half started with a song from the bassist Daniel Kimbro about the astronaut Michael Collins and then Jerry Douglas had his usual spot and the fiddle players and Mike McG on pipes and whistles also had their turns. The main set finished with Carlene Carter singing 'Ring of Fire' written of course by her grandma and then the encore with just the band playing tunes that got faster and faster and another great Transatlantic Sessions gig was done. Only a year to wait - I just hope they come back to Bristol.