The dynamic harmonica duo John and Pip Murphy opened proceedings with a sprightly set comprising two duets and a solo stint each. Their effortlessly fluid dueting showed their uncanny ability to read each other’s musical thoughts as they raced through a bundle of reels. Pip’s solo version of ‘Shepherd’s Love Dream’ was pin-droppingly good, while his brother John’s dextrous solo had a few jaws hitting the floor too.
After an unsettling set from Sean Tyrrell, reigning BBC Folk champions Danu delivered a dazzling performance. In Muireann Nic Amhlaoibh they have a singer whose confident ability to get right inside the content of a song puts her in a league above most of her trad contemporaries. She was particularly affecting on ‘Peg And Awl’ and Tommy Sand’s ‘County Down’, and sometimes all the help she needed to touch the soul was Donnchadh Gough’s subtly pattering bodhran.
But it was in their ensemble playing that Danu really scored, with fiddle, pipes, guitar, bouzouki, bodhran and accordion often meshing in wondrous union. And it’s rare to find a trad band so evenly balanced with top-notch young players. ‘Reel Gan Ainm’ nearly invented speed-trad and a zestful bunch of Kerry polkas had the audience equally enthralled, in the course of a set that became positively turbo-charged at times. Gough scored again with his haunting uilleann pipes on the slow air ‘A Stor mo Chroi’ which lead into two more soul-stirring reels.
Danu not only rocked the joint but they did so without sacrificing either the phrasing of the tunes nor their reverence for the traditional. They encored with a thoughtful reading of Richard Thompson’s ‘Farewell Farewell’ before an exhilarated crowd poured out into the Carrig night replenished in body and soul.