KENNY MATHIESON catches the duo in their customary supercharged form

BLAS dipped into Aly & Phil’s current mammoth Scottish tour to pull three of their concerts under the festival umbrella, and were rewarded with a predictable sell-out here, and an equally predictable top-quality performance on stage.

Aly Bain and Phil Cunningham

Since Gaelic is pretty much mandatory at any Blas event, singer Ishbel Macaskill opened both halves of the show with mini-sets of three Gaelic songs, affirming her conviction in the first that there is no better way to follow a song from Lewis than with another song from Lewis, and wondering in the second how the Gaels remained a viable population in the face of so much unrequited love.

As ever, she sang her chosen material (including the original version of the song known in its gentrified version as ‘The Eriskay Love Lilt’) with consummate control and expressiveness.

Over-exposure can often lead to indifference (for both performers and audience), but the familiar combination of Aly Bain’s gorgeous fiddle and Phil Cunningham’s inspired accordion seems to be impervious to that process. As they reminded us several times, it is now 23 years since they first played together, and these annual marathons have become a staple of the calendar.

The public’s appetite for them shows no sign of waning, and neither does the musicians’ enthusiasm for playign together. The opening set of Shetland tunes (one borrowed, one indigenous) thundered past at their customary dazzling speed(and yes, sometimes they do over-play the speed card), delivered with stunning virtuosity and a real feel for the music.

And so it went on – heartbreaking slow airs like Cunningham’s ‘The Gentle Light That Wakes Me’ or the traditional ‘Mrs. Jamieson’s Favourite’ alternated with sizzling sets of reels and jigs and international juxtapositions of tunes from Sweden, the USA and the French bits of Canada, interspersed with the usual banter and oft-told tales (often featuring the adventures of accordionist Fergie MacDonald). In short, business as usual, satisfaction guaranteed.

© Kenny Mathieson, 2009

Links

• Blas Festival