The Great Western Squares

While an all-seated venue initially seemed to make no sense, as the evening wore on you could see the value of just sitting down and taking in the regular wonders of The Great Western Squares. If the launch gig last night for their new album, Almost Sober, wasn't exactly the sell-out some had hoped it would be, it was nevertheless celebratory. The two lead vocalists, Gary Fitzpatrick and Oonagh White, opened up the show with a battery of tuneful, lonesome C&W howls, eventually leading in to the introduction of the full band on stage. This is where proceedings really kicked off.

One of the very few Irish bands to take hard C&W back to its roots (or at very least since Stars of Heaven subtly toyed with it somewhat in the mid-1980s), The Great Western Squares have thankfully grabbed the genre out of the hands of all those horrible cabaret hacks. With their original songs and judicious covers, they have regenerated Irish interest in the music, and to their inestimable credit have actually added both a ruggedness and solitariness that only the best country music contains.

The results are unadorned but very effective. It's the kind of music that naturally and intuitively evolves when the participants (including erstwhile Stars of Heaven guitarist, Stan Erraught; spot the connection!) are seriously in love with the music they play. A genuine Irish country band? Yep. The only thing missing here was a back porch . . .