REVIEW of New Shoes Launch, 20-6-07
Sunny tunes brighten up a dreary day
MARTIN LENON

Nuala Kennedy ****
The Bongo Club

TALENT will out. Nuala Kennedy has been kicking around the circuit for a good few years now, playing in a variety of bands, teaching and just becoming a weel kent face, but it's only now that she's being recognised as a force to be reckoned with as a solo performer. A force she displayed with class to spare last night at the Bongo Club.

Finally releasing a solo album, she couldn't have held a launch party with a better bunch of musicians than the acts she chose. Edinburgh band Bellevue Rendezvous and Glaswegians the Treacherous Orchestra, together with DJ Dolphin Boy all helped celebrate Kennedy's new album in style, for an audience who were definitely up for a dance or two.

Bellevue Rendezvous took to the stage first, unassuming and unannounced.
Their mixture of Celtic and European tunes held the audience transfixed, cheering and applauding between numbers. While European music can be dark and foreboding, the band kept it from becoming too dark with a healthy sense of humour and some excellent performances that suggest they ought to be on a bigger stage somewhere soon.

Following Kennedy's set, the seven strong Treacherous Orchestra, guided the party towards its conclusion with a hi-octane set of Celtic tunes, dancing and some serious foot-stomping.

The number of different bands each of the musicians had been part of must be well over the hundred, and every bit of it showed in the playing. Another band well worth catching at their own shows, although they could literally have done with a slightly bigger stage - if only because of the size of the band.

However well those bands went down though, it was Kennedy that the audience came to see and hear.

Smiling and friendly as you like, she took to the stage with her band, and blew all the cobwebs away with some of the sweetest flute and whistle playing heard in the city in a very long time. The Edinburgh weather might have been dreich for much of the day, but the music was anything but.

Opening with the up-tempo Pink Flamingo set, the whole band quickly showed themselves to be musicians of the highest order. All deserve individual mentions, but particularly the drumming and unique drum and percussion kit of Donald Hay.

Using (appropriately enough) bongos instead of tom toms, and playing with a gentle, yet energetic style with brushes, Hay never overwhelmed and constantly impressed.

Cáit i nGarráin a Bhile, a gorgeous love song sung in Gaelic, was later followed by the cheery Groves Of Donaghmore, sung this time in English, showing off her striking, lilting voice perfectly.

The quirky, jazzy, yet undeniably Irish sound of the Dolphin School set of tunes put a huge smile on the faces in the crowd.

Nothing about the music was po-faced or self satisfied, as can sometimes be the case with musicians of this high calibre. Kennedy and her band will probably play in a few more of Edinburgh's smallish venues over the next few months.

Do yourself a favour and see them there, because it won't be long before they're playing on bigger international stages, and places like the Bongo Club are a wonderful, intimate setting for such warm, inviting mu