IT ROCKS !!! (Leaving Friday Harbour - Battlefield Band)

Member Name: splodgethecat

Product:	Leaving Friday Harbour - Battlefield Band
Date:	24/08/01 (42 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Great rocking celtic music, Lovely haunting melodies, Traditional and modern content

Disadvantages: NONE!

This fine offering is the latest, but one, from folk music stalwarts The Battlefield Band. They have been together an amazing thirty years now and they sound as fresh today as they did in the 70s. This might be due to the numerous line up changes over the years, including a very recent one this year. (I will write more about the band itself and it’s legendary band members over the years in the general Battlefield Band section.) However, the line up on this particular album is made up of;


Alan Reid - Keyboards and vocals
John McCusker - Fiddle, whistles, accordion, cittern and keyboards
Davy Steele - Guitar, bouzouki, bodhran and vocals
Mike Katz - Small pipes, highland pipes, whistle, guitar and bass


What has made the Battlefield Band’s sound so distinctive over the years, is although there have been many members, there has always been the inclusion of the ‘bagpipes’ in any one band line up. (If you have never heard their rocking bagpipe version of Bad Moon Rising - you really don’t know what you’re missing.) Mike Katz does the honours at present. Anyway, back to this particular album;


Tracks


1; Clan Coco / The Road To Benderloch / Fifteen Stubbies To Warragul
This set of three pipe reels sets the album off to a stonking and stylish start. Tunes one and three were penned by the ban’s Mike Katz.


2; Last Trip Home
This moving song was written by band members Steele and McCusker and recounts how Clydesdale horses used to be used to plough the fields and the subsequent fading out of this practice. Delicately accompanied with haunting pipes and whistle.


3; It’s Nice To Be Nice / The Auld Toon Band / McCabe’s Reel
Three more tunes that start off with the fiddle playing in the main melody accompanied by the beating bodhran. Other instruments come in to join and the music builds up and gets faster and more fo
rceful throughout. I challenge you to play this track and not tap your fingers or toes!


4; The Straw Man
This ditty dates back to the 19th century and tells us about a Mistress Greig who was in charge of protecting her farm’s serving girls’ ‘honour’. However the girls play a trick on this busybody which makes her thick twice about protecting them so much in future. A lightweight, very traditional sounding song, written by a man named Shaw which was believed to have been based on a true story.


5; Leaving Friday Harbour
Delightful tune which takes it’s name from the small port on San Juan Island, which you will find in the straights between the State of Washington coast and Vancouver Island. Lovely fiddling, very melodic, definitely memorable.


6; The 24th Guards Brigade at Anzio / The Melbourne Sleeper / MacRae’s Linnie
This set of tunes has the wonderful pipes running all the way through. It rocks, it boogies!


7; One More Chorus
Humorous song about ’chucking out time’. Basically, no one wants to leave so they keep asking the band for ‘one more chorus’. Definitely one for listening to when you’ve had a few. Great to sing along to.


8; The Pleasure Will Be Mine
Very slow song beautifully sung by Alan Reid all about ‘leaving’. Written in dialect, the words are very moving and the singing is sparsely accompanied by the other instrumentation.


9; Something for Jamie
A slow air dedicated to the newest member of the Davy Steele family. A boy named Jamie. Delightful tune which has the hairs standing up on the back of the neck.


10; The Sisters Reel / Marion and Donald / The Lassie With The Yellow Petticoat / Jesse ’The Body’ Ventura’s Reel
Phew, imagine having to introduce this set of tunes at a live gig! This track is one of my favourites on the
whole album and although it contains four different tunes, it only runs to just under four minutes. Very lively, foot stomping and uplifting.


11; Logie O’ Buchan
The final track, which slows the album down to a cooler finish, with lovely harmonies and a haunting melody. Excellent finish to a truly superb album.


The CD I have also includes 4 extra tracks, which are ‘samples’ from other solo albums by the individual band members.


I would go so far as to say that you could buy absolutely *any* Battlefield album and not be disappointed. Their music is just as good now as at any time during the last thirty years, and there are not many bands you can say that about! Yes, this is Celtic music, but goodness, it ROCKS! I can’t imagine anyone, who enjoys music from *any* genre, *not* finding at least *something* they like on this album. And that’s really saying something too. Battlefield - long may you live ... another thirty years at least!

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