Julie

Friday before last the fan and I scooted up to London for a gig. Traffic being what it is it took us two hours to get there, which meant we had to abandon all hope of having anything to eat, and threw ourselves into the foyer of the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse just as doors opened.

The venue itself is a sight to behold. Smelling of new wood - it involves a lot of wood- with a painted ceiling and backdrop and lit by candles, it looks like a stage set itself. It feels very small and compact with the pit sitting (on benches) at the feet of the performers, and the stalls hanging over the stage, and the circle just above.

I imagine an original theatre of this age would be full of cat-calls, heckling, audience pariticpation, small children, old folk, animals, food, drink and life in general. This modern incarnation is rather more sedate and furnished with officious, verging on rude, staff, who insist that any edibles are in a bag, coats are not draped over the sides, cameras are not used. The ban on cameras seems particularly iodiotic in such an unusual and interesting venue, and surely it could do no harm to allow pictures before and after the performances.

The performance itself was Julie Fowlis, Eamon Doorley, Duncan Chisholm, Tony Byrne and a double bass player,who didn't seem to be comfortable with the evening. He spent time looking at his right hand on the neck of his instrument as if he wasn't sure where the notes were, and fiddled with various sheets of music on a stand...

I do like Julie's voice, although I have to say the thought of an entire evening of it wasn't my idea of a good evening out. I haven't listened much to the CDs of hers that the fan has, but they seem to me to be overly polished and perhaps a little insipid as a result of that.

As a live act I have to say she's well worth seeing. She does a good line in chat to the audience. Some of the ballads were beautiful, especially where she accompanied herself on harmonium. There were some lively instrumental sets and some mixed sets, with Julie flipping between whistles and voice. She got some audience participation for Smeorach Chlann Domhnaill and declared that we sounded like the London Gaelic Choir. There were some gaelic speakers in the (very appreciative) audience, which must have helped.

Eamon cracked a joke or two, Julie signed CDs afterwards, and all in all it was a good evening. Improvments? It would have been good to have heard Julie's pipes, and I still wish we'd managed to have time for dinner...