Live

Former Speranza songwriter and frontman Danny Guinan has been living in Holland since 1995, building up an increasingly devoted fan base while playing an average of 170 gigs a year with his band Red. Their new live album makes it easy to see why. From the exuberant opening track ‘Things I Will Only Know When I’m Dead’ to the blackly humorous closer ‘Nuns ’n Guns’, Guinan’s songs strike home, and he and the other musicians knit together like a well-loved old jumper, improvising and harmonising with joyous abandon. Fiddler Siard de Jong (who also plays bouzouki and mandolin) and accordionist Onno Kuipers shine on ‘The Shrewsbury Set’, which pairs a high-stepping polka with a brace of reels; the fourth full-time member of the group is double bass player Ronald de Jong, who shares the writing credit for most of the songs. They’re joined here by percussionist Leon Klasse and guitarist Bart Edel.