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RONNIE DREW & GRAND CANAL
Pearls Peninsula Entertainment ****

Ronnie Drew, doyen of The Dubliners and linchpin of the folk world for more than five decades, has embarked on yet another reinvention with this Grand Canal collaboration. This is spoken word performance with more meat than Baz Luhrmann's Wear Sunscreen and more light-fingered yet gravelly gravitas than any preacher could muster. Granted, at times it buckles beneath the weight of its own portentousness, not to mention an over-reliance on Jah Wobble's The Celtic Poets. But there's a laser-sharp clarity to the intent, and to Drew's confident delivery, that sets Pearls (of wisdom) far apart. The opener, Providence, is a scene stealer: part navel-gazing, part prophetic, a no-holds-barred commentary on life's ridiculous contradictions. Ronnie Drew's rumbled the idiocy of our times.

Risk taking with verve. www.grandcanalmusic.com