The buzz around RURA’s Celtic Connections gig on the penultimate evening of the Festival was brought home to me a couple of hours before the start when the server in the restaurant I was in – a young piper in his 2nd year the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland – said that it was the gig ‘everyone wanted to go to’. The concert was primarily a launch gig for the band’s new collaborative EP, Our Voices Echo, which features five prominent musicians from the Scottish and Irish folk worlds, all regulars at Celtic Connections and all fortuitously able to appear on the night.
RURA formed in back 2010, and their standing has, with good reason, grown substantially over time; two years ago at the Festival, they celebrated their 10th anniversary with a sold-out gig the Old Fruitmarket, releasing that show as a live album later in 2020 (read our review here), and then using the enforced pandemic hiatus to record the EP with some of their favourite musicians.
A packed Theatre Royal could see this was a big occasion from the off with the band – Steven Blake (Pipes & Keys), Adam Brown (Acoustic Guitar), David Foley (Bodhran & Flute) and Jack Smedley (Fiddle) – being joined on stage by James Lindsay (Bass), Mark Scobbie (Kit), Sorren Maclean (Electric Guitar) and a string section, with Seonaidh Aitken and Megan Henderson (Violins), Pasty Reid (Viola) and Alice Allen (Cello); and that’s before any of the special guests got near the stage.
The evening started with a winning selection of instrumentals, some at pace and others more reflective, some with just the core band, and others also employing variously strings, electric guitar, drums and bass. Three of the tunes came from In Praise of Home, the band’s last studio album from 2018 (read our review here) – Catriona’s, the title track and Day One. RURA have a knack for writing tunes that draw your attention and paint a picture, and that was nowhere more evident than on their rendition of the title track from In Praise of Home. The tune is about just what it says, and that was made fully comprehensible by the inclusion of the same spoken work excerpts used on the recording, in which Jack’s grandfather, James Russell, shares his description of what home meant to him.
Fiddle-player Duncan Chisholm was the first guest on stage. Duncan kindly said that he had listened to In Praise of Home a lot during the lockdown and that it had helped him when the going was tough – a very humble introduction from someone whose series of videos of beautiful tunes recorded in beautiful places had similarly helped many of us at times in the last two years.
Duncan plays on two tracks on the EP, and on stage, they were performed back-to-back. First, A’ Mhairead Og, a traditional slow air played as a duet by Duncan and Jack. Jack explained that they had finished recording the planned track with Duncan when he (Jack) suggested recording the slow air. On stage, it was an exquisite, calming moment; there are few more beautiful sounds than Duncan Chisholm playing a Scottish slow air. With a full complement of musicians on stage, there was a shift in gear to Chi Mi’n Geamhradh, an old Runrig song, and Running the Cross, a reel composed by Duncan.
Perhaps the best-known face and voice of Scottish folk music, Julie Fowlis, was the next guest. As unassuming as ever, Julie simply did what Julie does best – sang a traditional Scottish Gaelic song – Dh’èirich Mi Moch Madainn Cheòthar – quite sublimely (it’s a song Julie sang on her beautiful 2017 album Alterum and translates as ‘I arose early on a misty morning’). There is something magical about the way Julie’s lyricism communicates so much of the emotion and meaning of the song even though she’s singing in a language some listeners don’t understand, with the added bonus that RURA provided an aptly gentle, hovering underpinning at the start, and then lock into a swirling flute and fiddle led melody that left plenty of room for Julie’s singing.
Next up was Michael McGoldrick playing the flute on a great set of tunes. With solid support from Adam on guitar and Jack on fiddle, Michael was soon flying, sharing his trademark expressive, fluid playing on Famous Last Words (a Donald Shaw tune from Michael’s 2005 album Wired), The Black Tap (composed by Imar fiddler Tomás Callister) and Billy On The Bodhran (composed by David and from his and Jack’s very fine 2020 Time To Fly album).
Ross Ainslie was a sure bet to be on the roster for RURA’s collaborative project, and he didn’t disappoint on the night, playing a set of three tunes. Ross sounded right at home, typically chilled looking, but absolutely on the money on whistle on his own composition Floyd To Ke Anlong. He then switched to the pipes, and some piper’s sparring with Steven, for another tune he wrote called Peel Pier Fear, followed by The Wrangler composed by Jack, which sat very nicely alongside Ross’s tunes.
The final part of the launch came from rising Scottish singer Hannah Rarity (who had done a brilliant job hosting the opening night of the Festival). She asked the audience if they were up for a sing – how could say they no – and proceeded to teach them the chorus of Take This Heart Of Gold written by Andrew Marlin of Mandolin Orange. The result was a glorious, shared, anthemic effort. Hannah’s singing was an impeccable combination of nuanced phrasing and power that took the crowd along, supported by Julie Fowlis and a rousing strings segment, appropriately buoyed by Duncan Chisholm’s fiddle.
For an encore, just the band returned to play Horizons, the closing tune from In Praise of Home. An unhurried opening builds to a more boisterous end section, and David got the eager and rapturous audience on their feet and clapping along. It was one of those evenings that worked just as I’m sure RURA hoped it would, if not better. After that triumph, I can’t wait to see what they conjure up for their next Celtic Connections appearance – no pressure lads.