Review by Kenny Mathieson
Barbara Dickson
16 Mar 2005 in Highland, Music
Osprey Centre, Aviemore, Tuesday 15 March 2005
DUNFERMLINE-BORN singer Barbara Dickson was chosen to fill the bill for the first public concert to be held in the brand new Osprey Centre, a splendid auditorium within the Conference Centre at the redeveloped Aviemore Highland Resort.
Aviemore Highland Resort
The venue has been used for conferences and functions for hotel guests since it opened in November, but this was the inaugural concert open to the general public, and pulled in an audience of over 500 on a wet Tuesday night.
My immediate thought on entering the lush 650 seat auditorium, built roughly in a diamond shape with squared off ends and offering very comfortable and spacious seating, was that here was at least one answer to the problem of where do the bigger events go when Eden Court is closed for 18 months from June.
The sound and technical facilities were every bit as good as the seating and sight lines (the auditorium also boasts cinema-quality audio-visual facilities). The stage is not huge, and would limit the kind of events that could be put on there, but there would still be plenty of scope. Moreover, the centre also has a second, even bigger space capable of taking up to 1000 in a standing configuration for rock or pop events, and a ballroom upstairs with a capacity of 500.
The plans for the new centre included a cultural commitment to Highland Council to provide public entertainment at the venue, and that remains the intention of the management. They will surely have been encouraged with the response to this opening event.
Barbara Dickson turned in her usual polished and professional show, with no little help from her equally polished four piece band, featuring pianist Neil Drinkwater, guitarist and musical director Troy Donockley, bassist Pete Zorn and drummer Russell Field.
It seems inadequate to leave it just at guitarist and bassist – Donockley played Uillean pipes, whistle and mandolin as well as both electric and acoustic guitars, while Zorn performed superbly on tenor and sopranino (the smallest and highest of the sax family) saxophones, flute and mandolin in addition to his electric bass.
The singer has a fine voice, and if her general approach is a little too middle-of-the-road for my tastes, she turned in an enjoyable and varied show, drawing on songs from her early days on the folk circuit, her successes with West End musicals, and her pop career. Her version of J D Souther’s ‘Faithless Love’ strongly suggested that she would be a success in a country idiom as well.
Tonight, though, the focus of interest lay as much in the venue as in the star. We await further developments with considerable interest.
© Kenny Mathieson, 2005
