Review: Breabach by David Cavanagh
Posted on: Wed 14 Mar 2018
Hi, I’ve been to see Scots band Breabach at the Fortuna Spiegeltent in The Garden Of Unearthly Delights.
Breabach are a Scottish five-piece playing traditional and contemporary folk music to acclaim around the world. They are touring Australia promoting their new album Astar, which features musicians from Australia, New Zealand and Canada, all of whom they have worked with on previous world tours. This concert featured the five original members of the band playing guitar, double bass, fiddle and pipes, and what a glorious sound they made, from slow airs to fast reels, songs in English and Gaelic, and music from around Scotland, its highlands and islands plus a quick trip across the Atlantic to Cape Breton on the east coast of Canada. Fiddler Megan Henderson also entertained us with some fantastic step dancing, and Calum MacCrimmon and James Mackenzie blew up a storm on bagpipes, both individually and in duet. The good-sized crowd; not quite a full house but not far short, very quickly warmed up to the music and gave full-throated approval to each and every piece. Great playing from musicians well and truly at the top of their game. And Breabach were not going to be let off the stage without an encore.
It’s disappointing that this was a one-off performance, with no others in Adelaide, as the band are heading to gigs around the country, with concerts at the Blue Mountains Music Festival and the National Folk Festival in Canberra, amongst many others. If you don’t get to see them, buy a CD.
Breabach performed this one-off concert as part of the Adelaide Fringe.
