SUE WILSON took in Capercaillie’s debut at Piping Live!, with some special guests

GIVEN that this was Capercaillie's debut appearance at the annual Piping Live! festival in Glasgow, it was perhaps a shade unfortunate that their own piper, Michael McGoldrick, was absent on holiday (catching up with his family after several months' touring with Mark Knopfler), but all the more fortunate that they were able to call on Jarlath Henderson as a replacement.

Aside from the fact – as observed by founder and frontman Donald Shaw – that the Tyrone-born 24-year-old significantly lowered the band's average age, his formidably muscular, free-flowing, intensely soulful playing on uilleann pipes and whistles admirably matched McGoldrick's authoritative presence in the mix.

Such a substitution within a long-established line-up – when the substitute is of this calibre – can also lend a fresh spark or edge to the ensemble dynamics, with the element of unfamiliarity putting everyone that extra bit on their toes, and so it certainly sounded here.

In the instrumental sets, the mettlesome foreground interplay between Henderson, Shaw on accordion and fiddler Charlie McKerron emanated an instantly contagious exhilaration, propelled with heavyweight, high-octane force and fine-tuned precision by the rhythm-section engine, bassist Ewen Vernal, drummer Che Beresford and percussionist David 'Chimp' Robertson – that's become one of Capercaillie's strongest assets, particularly in the live arena.

Not that they're exactly short of other assets, the jewel in their crown of course being the uncannily beautiful singing of Karen Matheson, which just keeps getting better and better with time. Her minute control of expressive and dynamic nuance, of light and shade, of rhythm and colour, has rarely been more spellbinding than it was here, whether in exquisitely desolate Gaelic love-laments, funked-up waulking songs and puirt-a-beul, or compellingly heartfelt covers of John Martyn's anti-war plea 'Don't You Go' and Dick Gaughan's 'Both Sides the Tweed'.

The absence from the set-list of Capercaillie's self-penned ballad repertoire, which has been chiefly responsible for the charges of MOR pop blandness sometimes levelled at the band, enabled them to play richly to their strengths, with Matheson's vocals framed by lush, stirring but never overblown arrangements, centred on Shaw's thoughtful piano work.

Besides spotlighting Henderson's stellar performance, the piping festival context also added value in the shape of several special guests. Capercaillie were preceded onstage by short but equally stunning sets from US uilleann piper Eliot Grasso – who later returned for a silkily luminous duet with Henderson – and Sardinia's Luigi Lai.

The latter is a revered virtuoso and scholar of the Launeddas, mouth-blown triple pipes dating back over 2000 years, comprising a chanter each for melody and counterpoint, and a single drone, resembling three whistles played at once.

The multi-layered, semi-improvised, mercurial intricacy of the music he conjured from this minimal equipment, requiring both ambidexterity and extraordinary mouth control, had to be seen to be believed, as did a mastery of circular breathing that saw him playing without pause for over 11 minutes.

During Capercaillie's set, the Highland pipes were introduced by an appearance from Angus MacColl, whose friendship with the band goes all the way back to Oban High School, and who dazzlingly displayed the immaculate technique and fluency that had won him the invitation-only University of Strathclyde Piping Recital Challenge the day before.

He then reappeared, amid 13 representatives from the Spirit of Scotland Pipe Band, for the show's splendidly extended finale, with the pipes' glorious aural onslaught and tight, buoyant swing pitted thrillingly against that aforementioned rhythm-section attack.

© Sue Wilson, 2010

Links

• Piping Live!
• Capercaillie
• Sue Wilson