12 October 2022

Mawr y rhai bychain: Breabach

The humble shall be raised! Or more literally: large will be the small ones. That was the title of a small festival happening in Neuadd Ogwen. The humble were clearly the Celtic fringe. I had only recognised the name of a celebrated man who had written a sort of unofficial anthem for Wales: Dafydd Iwan. But Jaco and Marjan contacted me and said they wanted to see Breabach. Did I want to join?

I had to Google them, and found out they were a Scottish folk band. Apparently, they are huge in the folk scene, but it had passed me by. They looked OK! I said yes. And invited them over for dinner beforehand.

It would start at 7pm. Jaco didn’t want to miss anything! So not an awful lot later than seven we walked in. Jaco and Marjan had tickets; I just showed my face. But it turned out it was a seated concert, and it was sold out! Oh dear. I said I’d see how things would go and just leave if all seats were taken. Later I saw Dilwyn, the manager, and he said they had added some seats so I shouldn’t worry. But folk, seated? Shouldn’t everyone be dancing? 

Nothing was happening, so we figured we had arrived between support act and main act. But we were wrong! The support act, Cerys Hafana, from mid-Wales, appeared. She mainly played triple harp, and sang. One song involved a piano. She was good! And talked a fair bit between songs. It seems you have to tune a triple harp all the time, and you have to keep the audience entertained while you’re doing it. She spoke a lot about the music archive of the National Library of Wales; this was to the delight of Marjan, who is a librarian, and is not used to lots of library references during a live gig. 


Cerys Hafana

Not long after that (otherwise they wouldn’t have had much time left before closing at 11), Breabach itself appeared. And they were good! It was a rather calm approach to folk, but it was quite enjoyable. There was a bit of dancing! The violinist/vocalist clearly knows her steps. And at the very end, some people came to the front to shake their stuff. We didn’t.

Breabach
 

It was good to be there for an entire concert! And I didn’t know it yet, but I would be back really soon… 


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