The dividing line between band and guests was appropriately blurred at this banjo-fest gig at the magnificent Barony Hall, as everyone who played on the stage had anyway played on one or, in most cases, both of Damien O’Kane and Ron Block’s well-received albums, Banjophony (2018) – which Damien told us one radio DJ pronounced as ‘Banjo-phony’ – and Banjophonics (2022). Coleraine’s Damien O’Kane and California’s Ron Block were joined by band regulars Stephen Byrnes on guitar, Duncan Lyall on bass and Moog, mandolin wizard Sierra Hull, Michael McGoldrick on flute, whistle and snare drum, and there were a couple of songs from Kate Rusby (who Damien also happens to be married to).
Counter-intuitively, Damien began the night with guitar in hand but soon swapped it for his tenor banjo part way into the first set of tunes – Miller’s Gin/Potato Anxiety (Ron and Damien compositions, respectively). The first, a cheerful, rolling tune, nicely underpinned by the bass, Michael’s distinctive flute picking up the melody part way through; Potato Anxiety – named after a neighbour of Damien’s who used the term to describe how she responds to having no potatoes in the house – stepped up the pace for a traditional sounding tune, flute again a key ingredient. Happy Chappy had a choppy, cheery beat, with guitar and bass driving the rhythm. Sierra Hull came on (and stayed) for Trip to Portugal/Guiseppe’s, a cracking set of jigs written by Damien, mandolin, together with the flute, making for a resonant, layered sound.
Ron described writing tunes ‘accidentally’, creativity flowing unintentionally, in relation to Daisy’s Dance, a charming tune he wrote after one of Damien and Kate’s girls had drawn him a lovely picture; another of his tunes, The Fiddler’s Gun, was somehow related to pirates, its driving rhythm aided by Michael’s unobtrusive snare drum. Sierra was really flying with a mandolin break on The Lobster, a great traditional tune. The very close synergy between the musicians was a big part of what made the evening such a delight; as Sierra put it, she ‘had never played with a group of musicians where it was so easy to connect with the groove’. An encore of The Mystery Inch, a romping set of tunes Damien recorded with David Kosky in 2011, guaranteed the evening’s foot-tapping grooves were maintained from start to finish.
Post-gig, in the bar at around 12.45 a.m, there was one of those classic festival moments when a group of American players who‘d been playing tunes and songs for some time – including at times, Dirk Powell, his daughter Amelia, Natalie MacMaster, Allison de Groot and Tatiana Hargreaves – gave way to the legend that is singer and flute player, Boys of the Lough founder member, Cathal McConnell, as he stood to sing the first of two songs (with 10 minutes or so in between). A busy, noisy bar was instantly, respectfully hushed as the late-nighters listened to one of traditional music’s most iconic singers and song guardians do what he does best in his unique, almost fragile, yet commanding voice. Long may Cathal McConnell keep turning up and doing just that.