Oysterband – St Luke’s – Celtic Connections – January 17, 2025.

A bit late in the day (they’ve been together for 46 years), this was my first encounter with Oysterband live – in fact, I was mainly acquainted with their music via their recorded collaborations with June Tabor. So, I wasn’t sure what to expect, but, based on friends’ assessments, was hoping for great things. I was not to be disappointed on that score.

This was their last Scottish gig on a farewell tour – which, as fiddler Ian Telfer pointed out, involved “saying farewell to places we’d never been before!” Mr Telfer’s occasionally bawdy humour was welcomely apparent throughout the evening – his introduction to Spirit of Dust had him say that the rest of the band viewed it as a tribute to the renewing effect of music whereas he’d always thought it was about “sh*gging on the Welsh borders”.

John Jones on lead vocals projected a similar cheerfulness in his announcements, and, while his feet weren’t dancing (unlike the audience down on the floor), his arms certainly were as his flamenco waves conducted an enthusiastic public through all the choruses. As I said, I was not too familiar with the material, but Oysterband’s songs and their arrangements are deftly calculated for maximum audience participation with catchy hooks and choruses readily picked up via many near a cappella moments. I haven’t sung so much at a concert in years.

On the subject of singing, Mr Jones’s incredibly youthful and agile voice was commented on by many around me. Indeed, the whole band, despite having an average age somewhere in the mid sixties, sounded as fresh as teenagers.

The evening was topped and tailed appropriately, opening with When I’m Up I Can’t Get Down, and the last two of three encores being We Could Leave Right Now followed by Put Out The Lights.

Specific highlights in between were hard to pick as the entire show was so good, but, if I must, I’d have to say I was mightily impressed by a stonking version of Blackwaterside and by All That Way For This – showing the band’s more serious side in a blistering comment on society that’s, unfortunately, just as apt today as it was when the song came out in 1992. The seriousness didn’t stop the audience from giving all they had on the chorus – band and public were as one with the message.

The playing throughout was magnificent – every number well-honed through show after show but still infused with freshness and enthusiasm. Some bands demand the focus be on the stage, and work to earn admiration for their proficiency – Jethro Tull springs to mind in that department. Oysterband certainly have that proficiency, and, yes, they draw attention to their stage, but their supporters are invited in, becoming as much a part of the show as the musicians themselves. There weren’t six members of Oysterband in the hall, there were hundreds.

BOB LESLIE