With support from Niamh Corkey
The Runshack, 4 June
Based on the highly enjoyable debut and follow up albums by Tom McGuire & The Brassholes, it didn’t take too much persuading to buy a ticket to attend the album launch party at The Rumshack.
With the album officially launched the previous Friday, there was also plenty of time to become familiar with the tracks we would be hearing live. As a result, there was a high level of expectation about how Tom and his fellow band members, The Brassholes, would bring these new songs to life.
That the expectations were far and away exceeded shouldn’t really come as a surprise to anyone who has seen the band play live before. It’s normally high energy from the word go.
However, the exception always proves the rule and, when his mother takes to the stage to provide the spoken word introduction to the album, you could hear a pin drop. Near the front you could also see Tom with a tear in his eye as he jumped off stage to give her a mighty hug.
In those few moments, we can now reflect on how personal this album has become to Tom. The soul, the funk, the energy, is all still there. The album though is a personal story about his own life, his feelings towards his mum and dad and, most importantly, his wife and the birth of their daughter. In some ways it brings back memories of The Godfathers song, Birth, School, Work, Death as Tom punctuated the set with anecdotes about how his own feelings have changed in relation to his immediate family and his own self-importance.
With a four-man brass section, two backing singers together with drums, keyboard and bass, there may not have been much room for movement on stage for Tom to be his dynamic, energetic best but it didn’t stop him trying.
While the album itself comes in at just under 48 minutes, Tom and the band were able to play some of the extended improvisations that makes their music so catchy along with a one song encore in the shape of Super Solid Soul Vehicle.
Each song from the new album was delivered with effervescent proficiency with the fantastic brass section and backing vocals taking some well-deserved breaks the few times during the set when their services weren’t required.
While the band provide the musical depth to the songs, Tom is front and centre throughout the set. His rhythm guitar complementing the wall of music from the band though never overbearing, while vocally, there is something quite unique about the way he leads throughout the evening.
There are any number of highlights on the album Depth Perception, Fun and Why So Serious being obvious standouts and, on this showing, there will be many happy evenings watching and listening to them being played in the months and years ahead.
A great night, augmented by the story behind the songs we all heard. I think all would agree that the final track Sick-Well is a worthy end to the personal transition.
Support Act – Niamh Corkey
From her biography, Niamh is a young songwriter from Fife now based in Glasgow. She effortlessly blends the Irish and Scottish folk music she learned from her family with her own love of old school jazz, country and classical music to form her unique acoustic style. Soaring melodies and thoughtful lyrics are complimented by her ever-evolving band of Glasgow’s finest folk and jazz musicians on guitar, fiddle and piano.
The description above more than adequately explains the folk derived music that she performed ahead of Tom McGuire & The Brassholes. That she only found out about the opportunity to play earlier in the afternoon is a testimony to how much gigs like this can spread the word about her music.
Backed by the wonderful Timmy Allan on guitar and Roo Geddes on violin, she was able to meander through a set of songs that all had personal meaning to her. While the songs were grounded in the folk genre, when Timmy Allan took a more central role in the songs there was a general nod towards a more folk-rock style which upped the tempo and, for me, was slightly more appealing.
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