Tuesday, February 2 found us at the Bassment, with an east coast band made up of 2 fiddlers, a piano player and a fourth member who was a master of multiple instruments. We had a table close to the front, with a great view of the keyboards on the grand piano. Their lively music was captivating! They had no drummer, but Jason Roach accompanied their music and his keyboards with an animated drumming on the floor beneath his feet...his leg propelling the drumming with astonishing vertical and reverberating regularity as his hands danced on the grand piano keys.
Chrissy Crowley and Rachel Davis held their fiddles as they sat. It wasn't long before their feet also began to beat...not the fierce accompanying drumbeat of the piano player but an energetic fluid steady dancing that must have taken the same amount of energy as their fingers and bows. Rachel had to pull her chair back to the mic after each song; the dancing kept sending her backwards.
The music carried them, it seemed, as much as they performed the music.
The only one whose feet didn't move much was the mandolin, banjo, mandola, bouzouki, whistles, and flute player. They refer to Darren McMullen as the "Swiss army knife" of their team, who brings his arsenal of instruments to their music. Ask him about his banjo!
Each fiddle tune has a name, which may or may not be related at all to the sounds of the notes it holds. "Bad day at the Beach" sounds like a pretty awesome day at the beach. They introduced their D jigs by letting us know that it has not one tune in the key of D. And then grinned and began to play.
And the tunes are a mix ... they introduced some from Ireland and Scotland that were centuries old, and others that they had written in the past weeks and years. I can catch the sound of lilting something, and feel it kick into a beat that begs my feet to respond but these legs simply do not speak that language.
Their sing-along song was a beautiful gaelic lament of a woman who had lost her man. Live energy, surge of life and dance and celebration merging seamlessly with dirge of sorrow.
It was a quiet prairie audience, with some fringe clapping and vocal appreciation. We absorbed their music without really knowing how to send the energy back. Smile and nod, and tap your foot; clap, whistle and holler and somehow let them know how much they transport us. It was just so much fun.
But you knew that this music came to life when the room was filled with musicians, and feet that knew how to dance a reel.
Listen to them here!
Such a lovely and fun evening. Thanks for the replay. :)
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