On as part of Edinburgh's First Footin' series for New Years Day, which saw a variety of city centre locations turned into venues for free music, this was the offering in St Giles' Cathedral, a spectacular venue with an equally special band taking part. They performed four forty five minute sets across the afternoon, to a fresh audience each time.
After a short reading from a Len Pennie poem, the compere brought on Kathryn Joseph, who played keyboard and sang a couple of songs. While clearly talented I find much of Joseph's material too dreary and repetitive to be enjoyable, with the lack of clarity to her voice leaving the listener with few clues as to what the song is about.
For her final song she was joined by the trio Lau, and that provided a distinct step up, partly from the song itself having a bit more life to it than the others, mostly due to the quality of the arrangement and backing vocals.
Joseph moved off and we were left with the trio Lau, and short set that took them back to their roots. Simply acoustic, only Martin's accordion, Aidan's fiddle and Kris' guitar and vocal. It was refreshing to see them they way they performed these fifteen years and more ago. As tight as ever, but still freely improvising, this was grin inducing, body moving stuff, and a perfect lift for New Year.
