Celtic Connections review: Dougie MacLean: Songmaker 2024, Glasgow Royal Concert Hall

In this special concert to mark 50 years in the music business, Dougie MacLean invited a revolving door of guest musicians from his past to share the stage, and pressed his 2,000-strong audience to join in with the choruses. Review by Fiona Shepherd

Dougie MacLean: Songmaker 2024, Glasgow Royal Concert Hall ****

In a break from convention, Dougie MacLean kicked off this genial concert marking his 50 years as a performer by dedicating a song, All Who Wander, to himself – a well deserved pat on the back given a productive career he recapped with memories of his earliest touring exploits with The Tannahill Weavers, of striking out as an international solo performer, brushes with Hollywood and the enduring appeal of a certain Scottish anthem.

With a couple of exceptions, his songs tend to conform to a certain easy listening style and sentiment but he rang the changes by inviting a revolving door of guest musicians from his past to share the stage with him – some for the first time in 30 or 40 years.

He reunited with Martin Hadden from his first teenage group, Puddock’s Well, for some meditative acoustic folk rock and with Davie Duncan, Chris Smith, Ali Ferguson and Chris Agnew for “funny, pagany song” Turning Away, while an inter-generational line-up of MacLeans – his son Jamie and from Mull, Sorren and Gordon with fiddle player Hannah Fisher – provided a fuller backing for a number of tracks and Greg Lawson’s dulcet violin graced the touching Not Lie Down.

But MacLean was open to new collaborators – not least the 2,000 audience members in attendance, who were regularly pressed to join in on the choruses. As sweet as this sounded, it was no match for the incremental power of The Gael, used effectively in The Last of the Mohicans and rendered emotionally here by massed pipes and drums led by Ross Ainslie and Finlay MacDonald.

MacLean likened the overall informality of the evening to playing a gig in his kitchen and This Love Will Carry and “loveable monster” Caledonia were suitable parting shots, the latter with the entire 30-strong company out in nostalgic force.