John McCusker's 25th Anniversary Tour, Eastgate Theatre

John might only be 42, but he has packed a lot into his 25 years as a performer.  Steeped in Scottish traditional music, he has extended his repertoire into a variety of genres and is much in demand as a performer, composer and producer.  He not only leads his own band, but appears in a variety of other line ups, and is a regular member of Mark Knopfler's touring band.  This tour, unsurprisingly, coincides with the launch of his latest album, and a chance to play some of this favourite music.

Renowned as a multi instrumentalist, on this occasion McCusker concentrated largely on his fiddle playing, with just the odd foray into whistle, bouzouki and harmonium, whilst the role of Mr Versatile fell to young Toby Shaer on flute, whistles and fiddle.  providing a solid rhythm is Innes White on guitar,  and completing the line up is the wonderful Andy Cutting on button accordions, a man whose intuitive musical sympathy can enhance any line up.

Joining them on stage from time to time were singers Adam Holmes (who also brought some lovely guitar work of his own to the mix) and Heidi Talbot.  Holmes is getting well know for his solo work, but remains the voice of Scottish traditional band Rura, whilst Talbot has several solo albums to her name and has one of the warmest and most enticing voices on the folk scene.

There new sets of tunes from the new album, mixed in with older material, and songs from the vocalists.  The tunes may be new, but John's roots remain firmly within the tradition and and there was a comforting sense of familiarity about even the most recent works, but with an unpredictability deriving from the arrangements and instrumental interplay.  Shaer is twenty years McCuskers junior, but his contribution was superb, especially the improvisations on flute, whilst the equally youthful White proved a natural fit for the band's style of music.  Slow airs of haunting beauty mixed with rip roaring faster numbers and gave us two well balanced sets.  Holmes showed why he is becoming more and more sought after as a musical collaborator, and Talbot served a reminder of how delightful that Irish lilt is and how unique her interpretations of songs are.

You don't get to 25 years in the business without learning lessons about handling your audience and McCusker has developed a fine line in patter delivered with a dry wit.  Holmes, Talbot and Cutting contributed to the humour.  It all adds to the sense that this is a line up that know how to entertain - not just their audiences, but themselves too, and that sense of enjoyment is an important element in the fusion that makes this a near perfect musical evening.

Oh, and I should mention, for the one night only, the band were briefly joined on stage by a couple of tiny guest vocalists.  John and Heidi's 5 year old daughter Mollie Mae and her friend gave their interpretation of Coulter's Candy, aka Ally Bally Bee, and had the whole audience singing along with them.  Even I, a renowned child phobic, had to admit that was quite cute.