Feature Article October 3, 2001
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Racket
in the Chapelby
Jeff GreenThe
Barra MacNeils brought a lot of warmth and energy with them to a
concert in Sharbot Lake last Friday, although the concert was already
a major local event long before their vans rolled into town earlier in
the day.
The
band usually plays larger venues in much larger towns, but through a
series of happenstances and coincidences they were booked to play St.
James Church on September 11. Organizers were left scrambling,
however, when the date was changed just a few days before the concert.
As it turned out, September 11 would not have been a night when a
concert would have gone off well, for reasons we all know only too
well. Finally, after a week of rain, the skies cleared last Friday as
a crowd of eager concert goers filed into the church.
The
band received a loud welcome from the overflow crowd as they took
their places on the converted church podium. As soon as Kyle MacNeil
picked up his fiddle and began to play, the experience and polish of
the Barra MacNeils was apparent. Up front, Kyle MacNeil, primarly on
fiddle, Lucy MacNeil, on fiddle and Bodhran, and Stewart MacNeil on
accordion, Celtic flute and tin whistle, took turns fronting the band.
All the while, the eldest sibling, Seamus MacNeil, kept driving the
band forward on keyboards along with a solid bass player, who was the
only non MacNeil on stage.
A
few years ago the Barra MacNeils flirted with a more pop-oriented sound, and I was afraid the
controlled playing they opened the concert with was a prelude to a
kind of staged, cold performance by a highly skilled band putting in
time at a minor gig. This fear vanished completely as the band moved
through a repertoire that is definitively based on traditional east
coast fiddle music, complete with step dancing and warm and relaxed
between-song banter, with modern musicality and showmanship thrown in
for good measure. Long before the first set ended, Lucy MacNiel
had the crowd singing along and wondering how they could be so
lucky as to be seeing and hearing such music in their own back yard,
without having to endure a high ticket price and a drive to Kingston,
Ottawa, or Toronto.
Much of the music the band played came from their Racket in the Attic recording, their most recent CD, which showcases their own spin on Cape Breton-style music. The Barra MacNiels are not on the hard edge of this music in the manner of Ashley MacIssac or J.P. Cormier, and they have resisted any attempts to place them as the logical successors to the popular Rankin Family. Instead, they have focused on their own strengths: energetic playing and lots of rhythm.
This
was all in evidence at the concert, which was a great all-ages event
as befits the kind of music the band plays. Babes-in-arms were
squeezed in with spry seniors, and everyone was at ease with each
other. The joyous atmosphere culminated in the second half of the
concert in an unlikely song spearheaded by Stewart MacNeil. The
Jamaican-flavoured pop tune Dont
Worry, Be Happy brought
band and audience together. Normally reserved Eastern Ontarians opened
their mouths and not only sang, but were even a little bit loud.
When the concert ended, the stained glass windows were steaming over, there were smiles all around, the moon was shining bright, and the Barra MacNeils had made 350 new friends.
Among other things, the concert helped to further establish St. James Catholic Church as space where the entire community can get together to enjoy each others company.
