The music of the night
The Army Band performing at SETU Arena
There’s just something about an army band that always hits the sweet spot.
The immaculate uniforms, the shine in the shoes, the swagger of the parade ground and that element of look-at-me confidence of a job that’s always well done.
And the army band always delivers a splendid rambunctious, ballyhoo of brass , reeds and timps that never allows an audience drift into a cosy comfort.
Where better to start than with a march – 'Festmarche' – from the quill of the waltz king himself Johann Strauss II who loved writing popular music that was always tuneful.
Commdt Fergal Carroll reminds us that 2025 is the two hundredth anniversary of Strauss’s birth and that we’re sure to hear plenty this year from a composer that penned over 400 waltzes, including the Blue Danube, and a repertoire of twenty operettas that includes 'Die Fledermaus'.
This band doesn’t only boast players but fabulous singers as well. CPL Keith Dwyer-Greene – who recently choreographed the Carrick-on-Suir Musical Society’s wonderful 'Addams Family' – wows us with 'Music of the Night' from Phantom.
This is the whole package because Keith nails every nuance of the composition.
Story, emotion, drama soars over the melody as the singer manipulates his audience with variations in tempo and a final note to die for.
Dutch composer Boedijn’s, 'Gammatique' carries a touch of carnival about it with punctuated rhythms from reeds, sweeping brass and expansive finale.
Tenor and CPL Emmet Dolan is in fine control of the drama and the story of 'Out There', from the Jeckyl and Hyde musical before an intriguing trombone quartet boogies their way around the Cole Porter classic 'So nice to come home to', as the audience sing along.
It’s a big night for Riverdance composer Bill Whelan with three big-ticket items on the programme.
'The Walk of a Queen' was composed especially for Queen Elizabeth II’s state visit to Ireland and tonight sees only its second performance.
Whelan’s 'Seville Suite' follows the fortunes of the ill-fated Earl of Donegal Red Hugh O’Donnell’s defeat at Kinsale and his subsequent exile in Seville. Well, of course, Riverdance is here and the band capture all the excitement of that magical April night in 1994 when Irish dancing was to change forever.
The subsequent entry of the two pipers is a big hit with the SETU Arena audience.
Bold, loud and dramatic in their flowing kilts and drowning drones, the pipers had us from their entry.
I’m just dead chuffed that the Barrack St. Band under the baton of Mark Fitzgerald are guests for the Army tonight and open the concert with an appropriate Fanfare and Soliloquy from composer T Sharpe.
This is no easy blow.
A very intense fanfare with tricky rhythms is followed by a gentle legato from the reeds before big brassy finale has us all on board for a great show-off opener to the concert.
There’s a sense of comfort and homecoming about Saucedo’s, 'With Each Sunset' with its tender melodies conjuring up warm memories and emotions that is just gorgeous.
Bocook’s “'At Dawn they Slept', is the final and one of the showcase pieces of the evening as it conjures up images of the terrors of Pearl Harbour.
The call to arms from the lone bugler, the powerful scoring with its clanging chords and the explosive timps capture the chaos of that fateful day when the world stood still.
Both bands combined to see us out with 'Death or Glory' and another great night from the Symphony Club of Waterford.
‘Nuff said really!
