Hurry on Down to Music Town (The Complex)

Music Town was a series of concerts taking place around a weekend in various venues within The Complex (a new-ish venue just off Jervis Street). It was billed a festival, but each event was ticketed separately, making it easy to cherry pick the concerts that most appealed to your taste.

The first event I saw a concert on the Thursday evening saw a collection of acts that would not have been out of place at the greatly missed Hunter's Moon festival. First up was Aoife Wolf, who was probably the person on the bill I was most interested in seeing, as her recorded work suggests she is an artist of great promise. Unfortunately for me, her set started at 7.00 pm and I arrived at 7.20, which meant I missed most of her short set. I did at least catch her doing a song written on a haunted piano and an impressive cover of Sinéad O'Connor's "Mandinka". Check her out on Bandcamp.

Next there was Natalia Beylis and Eimear Reidy. Reidy played cello while Beylis played keyboards and electronic stuff. This was an amazingly immersive piece of work that I would have happily listened to all evening. From chatting to other attendees I sensed that this collaboration had a strong impact on everyone who heard it, even those who were unfamiliar with the previous work of each musician. "Oh my God, that was amazing, what was it?" was a typical reaction. Their album Whose Woods These Are is worth the time it would take you to investigate it.

Then came Adrian Crowley, playing on his own but with some pre-prepared accompaniment. He is an odd figure: a fixture on the Irish music scene but someone who has neither become very successful nor slunk away into the margins as an embittered eccentric muttering about how the business failed him. Instead he just keeps going on, playing to his fans and popping up at events like this. To some extent I find the idea of Adrian Crowley more interesting than the music he makes, but it's not as though I have ever properly investigated it. His stage demeanour is intriguing, an odd but appealing blend of nervousness and confidence. He has an extensive back catalogue.

And finally Anna Mieke. She sings songs and plays guitar and she had other musicians playing with her. For me she suffered from being so late on the bill at a point where I was a bit *tired*, but I think her work might replay further investigation. Her guitar playing in particular is very impressive. She is also on Bandcamp.

I should note that I was somewhat star struck during the above concert as I think I was sitting across an aisle from Cormorant Tree Oh, hardly a household name but an artist of singular talent who would have fitted well onto the night's bill.

I sat out Music Town on Friday, but did go to another concert on the Saturday. This turned out to be a mistake as instead of the Hunter's Moon adjacent stuff of the Thursday this was all entry level music for young people. The draw for me was I Dreamed I Dream being on the bill, as I found them entertaining when I saw them supporting the Wormholes in the National Concert Hall. They are an all woman punk-influenced band from Cork with terrifying hair and an appealing art-rock ethos. I quite enjoyed their set but after they finished I felt increasingly out of place and left for the comfort of my pipe and slippers.

On the last night of the festival I saw Crash Ensemble performing Philip Glass's Glassworks. This is a six movement piece from 1982 written by Glass to push his music to a wider audience. The individual movements are fairly self-contained and the piece is album length (originally the cassette release was mixed specifically for Walkman listeners). The opening piano piece sounded familiar without feeling like it was doing the Philip Glass fast-slow thing, and was then echoed by the closer. The middle sections were doing the fast-slow thing, combined with non-verbal vocals and the like. The instruments used by the small ensemble involved both traditional instruments and synthesisers; I would love to know how the scoring worked for the latter.

Maybe now when you know Koyaanisqatsi backwards this all feels almost cosily familiar in style terms, but you can see how Glassworks would have blown people's minds back in 1982. Even with the familiarity Glass's music enjoys now this still packed a punch, making this a candidate for live performance of the year.

So that was it for Music Town. I felt I only scratched the surface with the festival, as there were other evening concerts I missed, as well as ones happening in the afternoon. There was also a whole jazz strand that I completely failed to engage with, for all that I wuv jazz. I'm not sure Music Town entirely gelled as a festival, feeling more like a series of disparate gigs with not much of an overlapping theme. I would be curious as to how much overlap there was between the audiences of the separate concerts; my impression is not much. That might perhaps be addressed in future Music Town festivals by the introduction of all-in ticketing, though that might lead to its own complications.

More concert photos

Homelights

Homelights was this folkie festival thing taking place in Whelans over a couple of days. We bought tickets for just the Sunday and then only came down to see what was on in the evening. When we arrived, Adrian Crowley was playing. It was nice to catch him, as my understanding is that he had organised the festival. He seems to be one of those singer songwriter fellows, and he played tunes accompanying himself on guitar. He also had some woman with him playing fiddle or something like that; I think she might have been temporarily recruited from another band playing at the event.

I am not sure Mr Crowley was that great, with the tunes being not all that, and what was good about them live was often the stringy arrangements, possibly lacking when he plays on his own. I did like one song that he played near the end, but I thought it might be a cover; discussions with my beloved suggested that it might just be one of those songs that sounds very like a song by someone else. I straightforwardly liked the last song he did, something about three saucy sisters where he liked the shy one best (matron), even if the lyrics seemed a bit odd. And it is only fair to say that Mr Crowley has an appealingly understated stage manner.

Next up was Andy Irvine. Handy Andy always delivers the goods live, and here he treated us to something of a greatest hits set – so we had 'Arthur McBride (And Then We Bate The Shite Out Of Them)', the one about Woody Guthrie, the one about the farmer whose crops have dried up, the one about the soldiers, the one about the gold miner who meets a lovely young lady, etc..

The gold miner one is a particular favourite. I remember him saying a while ago that he has never recorded it, because it is the kind of song that loses its magic once preserved in such a format. I could not but agree with him, on seeing the reaction of an audience who seemed largely to be hearing it for the first time. The one about Woody Guthrie also went down well, with everyone loving the 'All You Fascists Bound To Lose' sing-a-long refrain.

And then Vashti Bunyan. She is one of those people who recorded one folkie album back in the 1960s before disappearing off into obscurity, only to have come back to musical life in the last few years with new recordings, concerts, and suchlike. She has some oddly contradictory qualities – she is obviously a bit shy and nervous about playing live, yet she seems to really enjoy playing and gets a real thrill from bringing her music to an appreciative audience. The contradiction actually contributes to how enjoyable her music is live. The delightful songs are also an obvious help here.

Sadly I could not pay too much attention to Ms Bunyan, as the heat and close atmosphere of the venue (in stark contrast to the cold and damp outside) meant that I became a little bit faint and had to go and sit down at the back. I am so un-rock and roll.

an Inuit Panda production.