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| © Ken Drew |
The evening began with sadness as Debra paid tribute to Ann Alexander (Ann Alex) but that mood lifted as Debra pointed out that both jazz and folk were among Ann's musical passions and that the Modern Vikings drew on both sources.
The sombre opening theme with lots of long notes and rumblings in the undergrowth seemed appropriate but gradually the mood changed. I imagined I was hearing a Scottish lilt to the piece, maybe I was and I could imagine Ann giving it a nod of approval.
McCreadie, took the first solo building it up into a discordant, yet meaningful, cacophony of sound that had me reeling (with delight) and if that had me going then Wiszniewski's follow up on tenor raised the bar almost out of sight. He was playing notes no human being ever wrote! I don't know if you can equate sound with gravity but, if you can, Isaac Newton got it all wrong. Konrad was blowing notes that disappeared up into the infinite, off into the great unknown. Fortunately, as the evening progressed, they returned before once more going into orbit.
Graeme Stephen brought a brief period of sanity and Bowden's bass served as, I think, a link to the next composition.
It was a non-stop set with the only suggestion that they were moving on was a juggling of the parts on the music stands. Yes they were using good old traditional paper charts and, let's face it, if you're attempting to bring elements of Scottish traditional music to the programme you're not going to cut it with any sense of authenticity with an iPad!
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| © Ken Drew |
An evening of sadness uplifted by the music and the near capacity crowd enjoying every minute. Lance
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