View from the Green Room: The craic is ceol
Sharon Shannon performed at Waterford's Theatre Royal.
There’s a word in Irish called ‘dúchas’ that has no equivalent in the English language. It’s deeper than heritage. A primal scream from the dawn of civilisation that touches every fibre of your Celtic being and reminds us of what we are, where we have come from and what we’ll always be. Dúchas. And it’s exploding all around us tonight in a flood of ceol Gaelach from Sharon Shannon that screams of belonging.
Sharon’s enthusiasm for her music is infectious. "Well," says the long-haired blond box-player with a smile as big as Tramore Bay, "The Blaas are great to come and ye don’t know how lucky ye are to have this magnificent theatre here in Waterford. I just love it here. Up the Déise!" And then she hitches the box, sits on her high-chair like a judge in session and off she goes.
Her approach is dead simple. "We’ll horse into it," says she and then it’s heads down and drive on for the finishing line. It’s like a musical version of the Donovan rower-brothers’ approach really: "Pull hard and row like a dog!"
She’s going to be playing some new stuff but, "don’t worry", says she, "all ye’re favourites are in there as well." And then it’s off with an opening set of three reels with her band of Alan Connor on keyboard and electric guitar and Gerry Banjo O’Connell on, well, banjo!
What else? Her concert choices have all got names that resonate with the pieces…Wild Boys, A hole in the pipe, The Piper, Frenchies and Bangees. And the divil knows all.
The audience instantly recognise them and join in with foot-thumps, rhythmic claps and shouts of ‘Up the Déise’. Great craic!
The song titles are really launching pads for a selection of jigs, hornpipes, reels, slow airs and even a waltz or two. It’s her devil-may-care approach that makes her music so exciting.
"I don’t know the name of this reel, but it’s a bit of diddledeedoo."
Sharon puts it all down to the time she spent working with The Waterboys. There were no rules as to the type of music played. She could move very easily from a punk song to an old-timey American waltz to Irish jigs and reels and onto New Orleans-type blues.
The whole evening feels like eavesdropping on a magnificent session from three brilliant musicians. Sharon’s solos on box, tin whistle and fiddle, Gerry Banjo’s contributions on a variety of stringed instruments and Alan Connor’s incredible duet with himself on both electric piano and guitar are mesmerising and bring huge applause all evening.
Shannon’s great strength is her innate feel for a tune. It’s the ornamentation that makes it all work. And there are musical surprises everywhere. She can take a melody, drag it around on a variety of rhythms, wander off on tangents and yet remain absolutely faithful to the tune.
It’s no wonder that the Clare woman’s debut album ‘Sharon Shannon’ in 1991 was the best-selling album of traditional Irish music ever released in Ireland and that she won the Lifetime Achievement Award at the 2009 Meteor Awards.
Dúchas sa Royal le Sharon agus a bosca ceol draíochta.
