Review of A National Treasure V – a celebration of the musical spirit of Gordon Duncan

Sep 30 2011 by Alison Anderson, Perthshire Advertiser Friday

IN this fifth celebration of the musical spirit of the late Pitlochry piper Gordon Duncan, the organisers came up with an absolute cracker of a programme which read as a veritable Who’s Who of the broad playingfield of today’s traditional music scene.

In fact, there cannot be many concerts which boast on the same bill a BBC Radio 2 Folk Singer of the Year, an international multi-award winning piping star, the second best pipe band in the world, and the reigning Young Traditional Musician of the Year.

Add to that stellar line-up: one of Scotland’s best and most enduring folk-rock bands, a super-group quartet of four top-notch musicians and a large helping of home-grown talent from Perth and Kinross including the two MCs (Fiona Ritchie and Gary West) who also happen to be broadcasters across the international airwaves.

All these amazingly talented people were part of A National Treasure V because of the many ways their music has been influenced by Gordon Duncan before and after his untimely death in December 2005.

And this coming together of so many great performers and a large audience will benefit future musicians through the work of the National Treasure concert organisers, the board of trustees of the Gordon Duncan Memorial Trust, formed to raise funds for the promotion of piping and other forms of traditional music among young people in Scotland.

Trustee Ross Ainslie, a protege of Gordon Duncan, fully merited the plaudits he received for his immense work as co-musical director to bring together such a wonderful line-up. Ross also featured in one of this reviewer’s favourite slots of the night – a scintillating short set by Charlie McKerron, Marc Clement, Tim Edey and Ross, which closed with Ross’s arrangement of some Gordon Duncan tunes closing with The Jig of Beer.

National Treasure V opened with top piping and good banter from Pipe Major Gordon Walker, a friend and competition rival of Gordon Duncan, and the traditional piping vein continued in spectacular style from the immaculately turned-out Grade One ScottishPower Pipe Band – runners-up in this year’s World Championship.

I have thoroughly enjoyed guitar and mandolin duo Wingin’ It on a couple of occasions but in smaller venues. Could this talented twosome – Perthshire-based Adam Bulley and Chas MacKenzie from Oban – still pack a punch in a large concert hall? Yes, they sounded superb with all three numbers, and Adam’s audacious Gordon Duncan-style take on Britney Spear’s Toxic worked a funky treat.

The delightful and talented Gaelic singer and whistle player Julie Fowlis and her band brought the first half of A National Treasure V to a close with just five numbers – not enough!! No complaints, though, of her Gaelic make-over of The Beatles’ The Blackbird, her spell-binding Soup Dragon, and fiddler Duncan Chisholm’s lovely happy tune for his son, ‘Isaac’s Welcome to the World’.

Post interval opened with the whirlwind which is Gordon Duncan Junior with his strong vocals on his ‘Wait Your Turn’.

Affirming that traditional music is in safe young hands was Orcadian fiddler Kirstan Harvey, the current BBC Radio Scotland Young Traditional Musician of the Year, accompanied on piano by multi-talented Megan Henderson. Then it was on to headliners Wolfstone, with whom Gordon Duncan occasionally played during the early years of this high-energy folk-rock band featuring Pitlochry’s Stevie Saint on pipes.

The clock struck 11pm before an avalanche of great sounds swamped the concert hall for a finale by 16 top drawer musicians – Stevie Saint led off the gorgeous Sleeping Tune, then The High Drive closed this thoroughly enjoyable and smooth-running evening on a pinnacle.

Alison Anderson