Flanked by the beautiful 12th Century Castle and mediaeval cathedral and situated on the banks of the River Nore, Kilkenny must surely be a contender for the prize of Ireland’s most picturesque city. It’s incredibly friendly too, the drivers all stop courteously at the zebra crossings and whether you’re after tranquillity in the surrounding countryside or the bustling nightlife, well there’s surely something here for you.
It’s the perfect setting for Ireland’s foremost Americana gathering, the Carlsberg-sponsored Rhythm’n’Roots Festival. Now in its’ ninth year, the Rhythm’n’Roots Weekend has been gaining rapidly in critical stature over the past few years and is certainly one of the best such events this reviewer has attended. The festival HQ and booking office is situated in Parliament Street and it’s flanked by no less than four of the bars/ venues (The Pump House, Cleere’s, The Widow’s Bar and Anna Conda) which present shows over the annual May bank holiday weekend.
As ever, there’s a whole host of talent on show with names such as The Deadstring Brothers, Robbie Fulks and the legendary Alejandro Escovedo all appearing and sessions springing up all across town. This year, though, W&H were on a particular mission: to catch magnificent Californian singer/ songwriter GINA VILLALOBOS launching her emotionally-charged second album “Miles Away” on her first-ever trip to Ireland.
Advance reports of Gina’s Friday show at Cleere’s were of a wild affair with whisky bottles being passed around a highly vocal crowd (a rumour later confirmed onstage by the lady herself) and certainly an air of expectancy hangs heavy as the crowd begins to congregate upstairs at the Pump House on Saturday night. The venue itself is a fine, intimate place: a little reminiscent of Cork’s sadly late Lobby Bar and after steadily filling up, there’s only a modicum of space left over stage front as Gina and her guitarist David Dyas appear as if from nowhere as the clock is striking eleven.
Although Gina’s undertaking a lengthy European jaunt (the UK, Spain and more as well as Ireland) to promote the gutsy, full-band feel of “Miles Away”, these shows are of the stripped-down, largely acoustic variety, with the pair tuning up onstage, changing their own strings and selling CDS from a large cardboard box afterwards. It’s a thrill to see them so close up and with the way Ms.Villalobos’s reputation is growing, it may well be that such intimate performances soon become a thing of the past.
So this promised to be an evening to savour and proved thus from the outset. They open with an emotive reading of Bee Gees’ cover “If I Can’t Have You”, suffused in longing, and soon have us captivated. Gina appears a little nervous at first, but she has a supernatural understanding with the versatile and courteous David and they soon hit their stride with memorable versions of first album highlights “So Much For Dying” and “Can’t Come Down”: the latter finding them both closing their eyes and hitting that memorable “I lighten up” chorus with some feeling.
Naturally we get treated to the majority of the new album too, and the rockers such as “Don’t Let Go” and “Miles Away” itself sound truly fulsome even when played by just one acoustic and one Fender Telecaster. Gina’s smoky, earthy voice really reaches for this latter, while Dyas comes into his own in a big way as he adds the snaky motifs and backbone to tunes such as the brittle and magical “Don’t Defeat Me” and last-gasp beauty of “Somebody Save Me” as well as adding some Robby Krieger-style bottleneck sorcery to an especially-poised version of “Rock’n’Roll Pony” highlight “Why.”
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The audience are hugely appreciative throughout, though Gina seems surprised we aren’t a little more animated. One memorable moment arrives when a guy near me shouts for “What I’d Give”. Gina spots he has the booklet from “Rock’n’Roll Pony” in his hand and asks the guy – whose name is Tom incidentally – whether he has her new album yet? Tom shakes his head, so she rummages in the cardboard box and throws one out to him. Way to go, girl! Tom is delighted and attempts to pay her for the CD later, but Gina refuses. Seriously cool. Naturally Tom gets “What I’d Give” too and while Gina and David have to refuse calls for “Message In The Box” because they haven’t rehearsed it, no-one can deny the bruised and broken version of “Hard Enough” they leave us with.
It’s been quite a show and intoxicated by the notion of a second set at the unlikely hour of 1PM the following lunchtime, W&H make a snap decision to stick around. Kilkenny has barely woken up as we head along to the long and narrow confines of The Widow’s Bar, but sure enough, a sizeable crowd has again turned out and a slightly dazed Gina and David are about to go onstage as the early afternoon light streams through the French windows and W&H commandeer some rather rickety beer crates stage front.
Perhaps in keeping with the early start, we’re confronted by a slightly more subdued Gina and David today and though David quietly steadfastly slugs from his Guinness, Gina stays on the apple juice instead of the pint she was presented with the previous evening at the Pump House. “It’s still got the same ice as last night,” she quips. “It’s the slowest melting ice in Ireland.”
Despite their slightly worn appearance, though, it’s another fantastic set, with the slower songs positively bleeding emotion and special mentions surely reserved for another wracked rendition of “If I Can’t Have You”; a frail and resonant “Let’s Fall Apart” and a wonderful “Not Enough” which is re-worked in a languid, blues-y tempo and stung by Dyas’s wicked, forked-tongued slide guitar work. There are a couple of stumbles, but even when “Don’t Defeat Me” falls down due to technical hitches it’s for the best in the long run as the version they work up instead is cracked and gorgeous, with Gina wringing every ounce of abject loneliness from the song.
It’s all over far too soon, of course, but it’s been another great hour and as they wind up with a defiant “Miles Away” it’s clear that Gina Villalobos will be heading on to England with an enormous Irish seal of approval. Many of the plaudits this writer has read suggest she is being lined-up as the ‘new’ Lucinda Williams or suchlike, but if this current strain of form continues, you can rest assured most of the smart competition will soon want to be this California gal.
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