For their first Temple Bar Music Centre performance last night, Dervish put on a typically dynamic and exhilarating show, confirming their status as one of Ireland's finest traditional groups.
The set Packie Dignam's Jigs gave the concert a highvolume, high-intensity opening. Here, and on all the dance sets, it was Brian McDonagh's intense and forceful mandola playing which provided the fundamental rhythmic drive. Instrumentals aside, almost half the concert was taken up with songs, performed by Dervish vocalist Cathy Jordan. With a lesser singer, this might have been overkill, but Jordan is a stunningly fine vocalist with a wide dynamic and interpretative range: from the gentle romance of I Courted a Wee Girl to the lively In Memory of the Hare, her singing was a consistent pleasure.
Liam Kelly contributed some sensitive whistle accompaniments to the songs, but really comes into his own as a flautist. On blisteringly-fast sets of jigs and reels he always retained a warm, rich sound. He is also at home on slow tunes, as his fluid rendering of The Hungry Rock testified.
Meanwhile, fiddler Shane McAleer was in excellent form, shining particularly on the set of reels The World's End and in his lyrical interpretation of Josephene's Waltz.
For encores, Jordan courageously opened with a stark, unaccompanied slow air before inviting the rest of the band back for a final dazzling set of jigs. Like all true professionals, Dervish made everything look deceptively easy.