PHIL Callery opened this subdued concert with bazoukist Niall O Callanain, his Loreena McKennit/Yeats To the Waters and the Wild setting a mood appropriate to Rita Connolly's lyric preference. Water seemed to be her theme, and lashings of it kept her voice typically clean and precise, her easy patter flowing.
She explored it from below with Sonny Condell's Ocean Floor, crossed it to get to her own fine Valparaiso, looked down on it in Michael Nesbitt's Rio, got soaked with Pouring, saw Sebastian Barry and Shaun Davey's Fanny Hawk off to her exile over it from Sherkin Island, observed of course, the Ripples in the Rock Pool, concluding with more rain in Stormy Weather. It was in Ripples ... and Valparaiso - formal, narrative mystical ballad - that she seemed most at home, her contemporary, familiar Bluesy numbers felt out of place.
Arrangements were stylish, hung around an Afro Latin oslinato, with Michael Buckley on flute and sax, Noel Bridgeman on hard, African styled drums, Peter Connolly on fingered and drummed bass, Rod McVey on synthesiser, Gerry O'Beirne on guitar, baz-ar and ukulele.
Together they produced the kind of big backdrop the singer performs best with Sisters Ursula (of the group Fallen Angels) and Inez built out the band to terrific presence on a beautifully varied, Orient scored Nazarene Man, and with Phil Callery developed a tremendous Factory Girl medley.
Muddy moments in a couple of choruses might have been avoided with lighter drums, but this was a superbly busy, band that impressively never otherwise obscured Connolly and framed her beautifully.
