The tickets say "Aly Bain & Phil Cunningham", but to millions they're just "Phil and Aly", icons of the Scottish folk scene. They've been performing and recording together for more than three decades, but this concert was a bit special. Less than a year ago Bain, now into his seventies, had triple bypass surgery. While his musical progress since then has been well documented on social media, and the duo have recently been busy recording a new album, this marked Aly's return to live performance in front of a large audience.
That meant less of the fast stuff we've been used to in the past, but there's been no fall in the level of artistry, and Aly's fingers still dance mesmerisingly across the strings. The style is very much from the tradition - there's little of the kind of fiery experimentation you'd see from the likes of Ross Couper - but it's the mastery of that style that shines out, the subtle improvisations and the intuitive communication between fiddler and accordionist. Old tunes from Scotland and Shetland and Canada and Sweden, modern compositions for all over the place, many of them by the guys themselves. Cunningham in particular has written so many stunningly beautiful melodies over the years and it was a request for one of those, The Gentle Light That Wakes me, that closed out the night.
It's not just the music that made this special. Cunningham is famous for his anecdotes (although admitting he'd cleaned up a lot of them given the surroundings!) and Bain for his dry interjections. Together they are one of the funniest comedy double acts around, and the audience's grins are brought on by laughter as much as musical enjoyment. What's lovely to see is that, even after so long working together, they clearly make each other laugh too.
Wonderful acoustics, superb music and a lot of laughs. Pretty much the perfect evening.
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