Loreena McKennitt at the Barbican Centre, London
I wrote this probably slightly over-enthusiastic review of the concert on the train earlier. What else, after all, is one to do on a train when one is alone and some idiot with a PSP is misusing its pathetic speakers to treat the entire carriage to some really bad hip-hop? So I stuck my trusty Shure E2cs in my ears, put some Loreena McKennitt on (surprise) and wrote away.
Anticipation couldn’t really be anything but high for Loreena McKennitt’s first tour in nine years. Intended to promote her superb new album An Ancient Muse, the concert at London’s Barbican Hall was the only UK date and was sold out.
The Barbican Centre is a very impressive building. On the outside it looks like an ugly concrete monstrosity, but inside it’s extremely well done with a simple aesthetic and an audacity of scale which is bound to impress. It’s big. Within the centre there appear to be four cinemas, a theatre and the hall itself, and there’s no sense that anything was squeezed in. The bar outside the hall stalls doors is huge, and interval drinks involved much less than the usual horrendous queues.
Of course, it’s something to be impressed by the venue, but something else to be impressed by the performance. Upon entering the stalls to take my seat which was conveniently located half-way up the tiered section of the stalls at the end of a row, the first thing that caught my eye was the stage, which was set with a large array of musical instruments, a golden arch and a backdrop lit in blue which perfectly evoked the blue and gold tent depicted upon the cover of An Ancient Muse and indeed the concert programme. A lot of people seemed to stop and gaze at it for a moment before finding their seats — it was a truly impressive sight.
The seats themselves aren’t the folding kind one usually expects in a concert hall, and were well padded if a little low for my excessively-long legs to be entirely comfortable with. There was, however, ample leg room and my deliberate choosing of an end-row seat was unnecessary — I would have been perfectly comfortable in the middle.
The hall being extremely tall and steeply tiered especially in the circle, it seemed like everyone would have a good view, but from where I was I think I had one of the best views in the house. Not too far off-centre, and a good height and distance from the stage that I could still see everything clearly.
Seats filled rapidly as half past seven approached. The waiting was made easier by the programme, given out for free and containing a great deal of writing about the process of touring, the ethics of flash photography and the cult of celebrity, something which Ms McKennitt feels very strongly about especially given the legal action she was forced to take in the UK after the publication of a book falsely claiming to be by an intimate friend about her private life.
Ultimately the impression gained from the programme is that each concert is viewed as a private gathering of friends — not close friends, but people with a common bond, come to share in a few hours of music and experience. This impression was bourne out by the concert itself.
Finally the time came and the musicians appeared, followed by Loreena McKennitt herself to wild applause. She sat at her harp and the band immediately launched into a new and rather unusual arrangement of She Moved Through The Fair, which those of us who own her first album Elemental thought we knew. This version was quite different, but then she did record the version we’re familiar with quite a few years ago now.
This was blended seamlessly into The Gates Of Istanbul with Ms McKennitt switching to keyboards, and huge applause filled the hall as the song came to an end.
Then one of my favourite songs, The Mummer’s Dance, requiring Ms McKennitt to change instruments again, to the accordion this time. It was in this song that the hurdy gurdy player — Ben Grossman — got an opportunity to shine, but I cannot stress enough the sheer amount of musical talent which was assembled on the stage that night. I single out the hurdy gurdy only because it’s an instrument I’m rather fond of, and it was fascinating to hear one played live.
The end of this song brought even more applause, and it was after sitting at the piano that Ms McKennitt first addressed the audience. She appears rather less confident talking than she does singing, but nobody could hold it against her. Penelope’s Song was the next to be sung, followed by the instrumental Marco Polo where each of the musicians near the front had a chance to show off in a solo section, the spotlights picking each one out as we were passed from violin to guitar to cello to hurdy gurdy, with a driving beat from the three percussionists at the back binding everything together. As each piece ended, the applause seemed to increase.
Late arrivals came in between almost every piece, and soon I couldn’t see an empty seat anywhere in the stalls. It’s the first sold out performance I’ve been to where it seemed everybody had actually turned up, and given the historical frequency of Ms McKennitt’s UK concerts, I would also have done everything I could to ensure that I didn’t miss it. Who knows how long it will be before we can see her again?
The next song took a darker tone, The Highwayman being a long ballad which ends badly for two lovers, based on a poem by Keats. Dante’s Prayer, which was explained to have been inspired by reading Dante while travelling by train through Siberia in December, was followed by The Bonny Swans, a traditional song which seems to be made up of bits of at least two other songs. Although the story fits together, the daughter who the song is about starts off as the daughter of a farmer who has two sisters, and ends up the daughter of the King with two brothers and one sister. There are many other variants of this song, performed by many artists including Jim Moray, who calls it Two Sisters, and Pentangle, who call it Cruel Sister. Each version is different but the story is essentially the same. A sister, jealous of her (usually younger) sister for some reason (often because someone highly desirable is courting her), pushes her into the river or the sea and leaves her to drown. Her body is eventually washed up near a minstrel (or two minstrels) who for some unknown reason constructs a harp from her breastbone and strings it with her golden hair. He takes this harp to the King’s court, which by this point in the song is described as the hall of her father, and the harp then plays itself, a story of sorrow and woe and the betrayal of a sister.
Fortunately the song which finished the first half, Caravanserai, is a superb piece and rather happier.
The interval seemed short, but nobody minded as, armed with full drinks, we returned to our seats for the second half which opened with a song not on the programme which I had never heard before, so I have no idea of the title. It was good, and I’m wondering how much material she’s already got for the next album.
I remember going to job interviews after I graduated with my BSc and listening to The Mystic’s Dream on the way. It’s a fantastic song, and was performed next in a different arrangement. It had to be different of course, she’s got a differet set of musicians and the album version includes a male voice choir on backing vocals and they of course were not present. Santiago, a tune using the voice as an instrument (the words consist entirely of ‘na’, ‘la’ and ‘da’), was extremely well received, played utterly perfectly and with great energy. It again offered most of the musicians a solo opportunity which they took with relish. Caroline Ravelle on cello plays everything with the appearance of great passion and energy, her long hair flying as she pulls and pushes the bow across the strings, sometimes striking them with shocking amounts of force. Hugh Marsh is no gentler with his violin, and they both displayed astonishing virtuosity.
It would not be right to continue without also mentioning Brian Hughes, playing guitars, celtic bouzouki and oud, who demonstrated irrefutably that the electric guitar solo does have a place outside rock music. The applause after Santiago was thunderous, and we still had Bonny Portmore, Beneath a Phrygian Sky, Kecharitomene (featuring more overwhelming instrumental virtuosity), The Lady of Shallott, The Old Ways and Never-Ending Road (Amhrán Duit) to go before the set was over.
I won’t bore you talking about each song. By this point emotions were running very highly, and I went from noticing details to revelling in the experience and the atmosphere which was being so expertly crafted by those on stage.
A standing ovation was obviously called for, and we clapped until our arms hurt and then clapped some more and were rewarded with an encore — a staggeringly good new arrangement of Huron ‘Beltane’ Fire Dance, another one of Ms McKennitt’s earlier songs, this time from the second album Parallel Dreams. This was actually the first time she’d played the harp all the way through a piece, and it was nice to hear it unfettered although the other instruments on this piece tend to overwhelm it a little.
Not the harp’s fault of course, it’s not the sort of instrument which can easily stand up to an electric guitar, a violin, a cello, a hurdy gurdy, an accordion, a lyre and a big pile of drums all at once.
Another standing ovation followed and, fortunately, a second encore. “We’ll leave the last word to Shakespeare,” Ms McKennitt says, exactly as she does on the live album Live In Paris And Toronto, before playing Cymbeline, the words of which were indeed written by Shakespeare. This was a quiet, intimate moment, with only harp, acoustic guitar and lyre on stage and playing. The house lights came up after the third standing ovation, and it was regretfully time to leave.
Truly this was a concert given by a supremely talented set of musicians. Groups like Flook and Lúnasa will light up a venue and fill it with sound and energy and carry the audience through a field of incredible rhythms. Steeleye Span will come out on stage and have a jolly good time, while Karine Polwart and her band make you feel like you’re having a private party. Loreena McKennitt takes her audience somewhere else entirely, and it’s not the sort of experience you should miss out on.