Music / Reviews
Review: Sheelanagig, Strange Brew – ‘Wild and raucous’
On a very chilly evening friends waltz and, eventually, leap and bounce under the mirrored shimmer of the Strange Brew glitterball. Tiny lights pick out laughter and smiles as two of Bristol’s finest live bands chase away the November blues.
If tonight is a celebration of twenty years of Sheelanagig‘s folk madness, then The Schmoozenbergs are a perfect way to warm things up. A delicious mix of francophone elegance, gypsy jazz and klezmer zing, the four-piece strut in on a Django groove and sepia-toned Belleville loveliness.
Cortisol Swing is a melting pot, as diverse and exciting as an early 60s Paris street. Ron Phelan’s double bass slinks alongside the rhythmic acoustic guitars of Sam Stennett and Tom Brydon-Smith while Gina Griffin’s fiddle flicks melodies all over the place. Bits of Europe are picked up, danced with, then discarded as the next bit shimmies into view.
is needed now More than ever
Tango 20, taken from their brilliant new-ish album Mouse, has Phelan moody and brooding while Griffin whisks her stiletto-sharp fiddle in graceful arcs. Brydon-Smith gallops along, bursting with snazzy guitar lines.
On Finale, the guitars rattle until Griffin’s violin slowly raises itself, brushes the dust from its dress and whips up a storm. Part Klezmer stomp, part Roma sway, it sees a rapt audience hopping from foot to foot.
Hopping from foot to foot is nothing compared to what happens when Sheelanagig take the stage though. When confronted with a breakneck barrage of fourteenth century medieval folk punk, hurling yourself about is the only thing to do.
Alex Garden’s guitar circles Aaron Catlow’s crazed fiddle, they snap at each other until Luke Phillips’ flute crashes through everything. Bad Ken provides the Balkan madness from early on: everyone, everything, is bouncing. A good time is being had.
The good time doesn’t let up for an instant. Gentle waltzes smash into frenzied knees-up improvised folk dances, John Blakeley’s drums thunder and tumble, joining John Short’s elastic double bass in catapulting infectious rhythms to all parts.
Poncho Pounce is full of funkiness, The Manc Monk riding in on a blues lick but quickly transforming into more fiddle and flute filled shenanigans. Phillips and Catlow echo each other time and time again, driving each other to wilder, more unhinged feats of madness.
‘Wild, unhinged feats’: the madness of Aaron Catlow’s onstage antics comes a close second to his fiddle playing – photo: Sheelanagig
The whole thing is like being attacked by two huge whirling things. Just as you think that the flute has finished with you, the fiddle takes you up and spins you about some more. It’s a never-ending tilt-a-whirl, a twirling, thrashing, giddy whirl.
You know that thing when someone spins you round, you lean back and look at the sky? It feels a bit dangerous, like you might fly off and land in a heap? It’s that. It’s land-based vertigo. It’s demented star-gazing. It’s exhilarating and so much fun.
By the end, the cries of “hey-hey-hey” are long and loud; Garden chopping out great heavy metal riffs; Catlow’s violin absolutely flying – for all of his silliness he is one hell of a violin player – the flute shrieking and wailing, an Eastern European hurricane raging all around us.
Catlow observes that he’s “too old for all of this” and then dives right back in, jumping, whirling, leaping.
The twinkles of the glitterball are forgotten: they seem a bit polite now. Sheelanagig are celebrating their birthday and it’s just as wild and raucous as you’d imagine.
Main image: Gavin McNamara
Read next:
Our top newsletters emailed directly to you
