Gig review: Julie Fowlis

Published on Wednesday 28 October 2009 17:56

JULIE FOWLIS **** QUEEN'S HALL, EDINBURGH

THERE'S a certain boldness about the way Hebridean singer Julie Fowlis is dragging Scottish Gaelic song towards the mainstream with her own crisp take on it.

At one point during this Queen's Hall performance she instructed the audience to join in the three-line chorus of a song, telling us it would be easy, even though the crowd's reaction suggested there were few Gaelic speakers in. Still, they made a game attempt, in the manner of kids being coerced to sing along self-consciously with their Sunday school teacher.

Audience interactivity aside, an understanding of Fowlis's words isn't necessary to appreciate the hypnotic beauty of her ballads or the vibrant snap of her reels.

Her four-piece band, including her husband Eamonn Doorley, are excellent, and they were joined here by Phil Cunningham on piano for the song Bothan irigh am Brigh Raithneach (A sheiling on the Braes of Rannoch).

Despite being seven months pregnant ("I wasn't sure I'd have enough breath left for an encore," she noted, "the lungs are heading northwards nowadays"), she performed with unhurried energy.

The quest to bring the Gaelic voice south doesn't just stop in Edinburgh, either, with Doorley recalling a recent date in Bognor Regis, a place Fowlis was never sure really existed; Fowlis also pointed out that she tried the singalong thing in Manchester, too.

Whether they managed any better than this Edinburgh crowd remained sadly unreported.