Gig review: Saltfishforty | Spiers & Boden

Published on Monday 5 July 2010 20:37

SALTFISHFORTY / SPIERS & BODEN **** ORAN MOR, GLASGOW

THE latest Scottish Arts Council-sponsored Tune Up tour has brought together two dynamic folk duos, celebrating different traditions, yet with much soul and spirit in common.

Spiers & Boden on accordion, fiddle and foot-stomping, brought to the table jigs, hornpipes and morris tunes from all over England – sometimes traversing several counties within the one tune – as well as stories, familiar and peculiar, of maids on mares and men in tights, delivered with evocative empathy by Jon Boden – surely one of the finest folk vocalists on the circuit before rounding off their set with a two-jigs-and-shanty sandwich.

Orkney duo Saltfishforty, comprising Douglas Montgomery on fiddle and singer/guitarist Brian Cromarty, are a naturally comical pairing and effortlessly lyrical players, whose varied repertoire encompassed farmhand murder ballads, sweet lullabies and a jaunty country/skiffle-influenced paean to tea and toast, with a Stphane Grappelli-style fiddle breakdown.

Both partnerships are also vital cogs in larger ensembles – Spiers & Boden are the driving force behind the folk/world big band Bellowhead, while Montgomery and Cromarty also play in crossover eight-piece The Chair – so it was no great surprise that their collaborative finale produced some of the most invigorating moments of the night, fuelled by the extra impact of a twin fiddle attack.

There was good-natured jostling over the provenance, title – and key – of a polka known in slightly different incarnations to both groups, but they presented a unified front on the whalers' shanty Rolling Down To Old Maui, which featured beautiful, rich, complementary playing from Boden and Montgomery and a lusty four-strong chorus. The encore flirted dangerously with pub rock but it was only right that such a jubilant alliance should go out on a raucous high.