NORTHUMBRIAN MUSIC
NIGHTS
What we said about
KIERAN HALPIN
Kieran Halpin Controls the Crowd in
Allendale
Being a control freak is not necessarily a bad approach to life. At least in the musical sphere, it means the audience gets exactly what the entertainer seeks to deliver.
After a delicious taste of the best of Tynedale's entertainers providing cheerful support, Kieran Halpin delivered two sets of sustained virtuosity, and unbelievable control, last Friday night at The King's Head in Allendale. The range of his guitar work was a brilliant foil to his dynamic vocal presence, which ranged from a sustained ethereal, angelic high tenor to an emotively rasping baritone. Here was an entertainer who lives his music, and is comfortable with it.
Takes some 'Believin', some might say, but Kieran really does everything himself, from writing, performing, recording, producing his own material and CDs, to arranging his own tours, roadie-ing the sound gear up hill and down dale, and chatting with fans throughout the too-short evening of his performance at any particular venue. This sort of control does show through in performance, so that it was no wonder he'd got his audience into rapt mode very early on in the night.
As Kieran remarked later that night, he starts off a particular gig with one song in mind, and then his repertoire flows depending on his reception. So we were a privileged group crowding into the standing-room only function room, as a compilation of amazing lyrics poured out. 'A lighter shade of black' gave way to 'Naked and Bare', contrasting fortune and pain, and the deep personal anguish of 'No-one ever comes around' was redeemed by the sentiment of 'Closing Time in Paradise'.
Where, of course, the 'Angel of Paradise' lives. But life is rather more like 'Something in Between' than a black and white simulacrum of our hopes. After the break, 'The man who lives in bottles' brought the house back to focus on the man alone with his music, and then the rivetting 'Running all my life' meant that copies of Kieran's latest album, 'Solo' were particularly hot items.
'Farewell to Pride' with its haunting sentiment, has uniquely been turned into a hymn in Germany, where Kieran assays a tour next month of 43 gigs in 44 days. With songs for party animals like 'Glory Days', or the boxing metaphor of 'I was on your side', and the nostalgic 'Too long away from this country' as well as 'Mirror Town', it's a safe bet that, as in Allendale last week, the universal, yet personal themes of his music will be received with similar enthusiasm all around the world.
