Sunday 20 March 2011

Seth Lakeman, Benji and Cormac play a blinder!


Went off to Colchester Art Centre last week to see the amazing Seth Lakeman, this time in his acoustic trio line-up featuring Benji Kirkpatrick (guitars, mandolin and bouzouki) of Bellowhead and the amazing percussionist Cormac Byrne, of Uiscedwr, as above demonstrating his skill on the Bodhrán. The evening was fantastic, three superb musicians in perfect synergy made all the more special by Cormac's incredible versatility and engaging smile.

Interestingly even though these three guys have done so much to re-energise folk music they are generally frowned on by traditionalists who say they both don't play their instruments 'correctly' and they're dumbing down the genre... reminds me of something??!!

P

3 comments:

stripes said...

I was at the Colchester gig too! It was brilliant. I'd forgotten quite how incredible Seth Lakeman is live - so much sound from one man. I'm sure he's thoroughly sick of playing Kitty Jay, but to me it was worth the ticket price alone. I've not seen the trio before, and they were wonderful. Benji Kirkpatrick is a bit of a genius. (And a bit of a dish too, to lower the tone).

Back off up the A12 tonight for Spiers & Boden. Very excited! As for being frowned on by traditionalists, no I've absolutely no idea to what you could refer... ;-)

Peter Banks said...

Cheers stripes and welcome!

I picked up Spiers and Boden were playing last night a tad too late, was sold out by time I tried to get a ticket, how was it for you?!

Best, PB

stripes said...

Thank you!
S&B were excellent, as ever. It's their 10th anniversary tour, so we were treated to old tunes, new tunes, never-heard-before tunes. And Sloe Gin, natch. 6 and a half minutes of pure sunshine...
They play together like a dream, as I suppose you would after 10 years.