Reeling In Rio

So what do you do when it comes to celebrating your tenth anniversary together? Book a cosy table in the local eatery? Issue invitations to a hooley in your local? Maybe even toss caution to the wind and release a compilation CD, record two further albums and open up your own studio, to celebrate a decade of successive musical highs? Hell, why limit your vision to just one? Why not take it all… and then head for Rio.

Dervish, Sligo's amalgam answer to Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young, Moving Hearts and the Buena Vista Social Club, know how to celebrate like few others do. January 2001, the dawn of their tenth year together, saw them, not yawning with fatigue from the road miles, but jumping out of their skins and onto a stage in Rio de Janeiro, B-R-A-Z-I-L. These seven party animals hit the stage and the Copacabana beach with equal enthusiasm.

And how did the hottest spot south of Havana respond? Like the Christo Redemptor statue that symbolises everything that's welcoming and open about the city, Rio embraced Sligo's, and Ireland's musical geniuses with the unfettered joy of a father embracing an entire litter of prodigal offspring. Tenth birthday parties seldom come as extraordinary as this.

But first things first. To understand how a band from Sligo came to seduce an entire audience raised on passionate music as if it were corn bread, we must first back pedal to glance at their cumulative record over the past decade. Five albums, including one exceptional live recording from another unlikely location, Palma; passports riddled with exotic immigration stamps including Bogota, Columbia and Beijing, China (not to mention Termonfeckin and Hackballscross); regular consorts with some of the most innovative of world music's artists, from Sweden to France, Spain and points east and west. Dervish have never taken the easy road or switched to autopilot. And now that lateral thinking is finally paying the kind of dividends that'd put a smile on the face of even the chronically depressed.

Rio de Janeiro's twelve million inhabitants had been bracing themselves for what they call their own Olympics for well over a year before Rock In Rio, the outdoor festival to beat all others, finally kicked off on January 12th. It's a two-weekend event, consisting of no less than 7 days and nights of concerts, located in Jacarépaguá, a purpose-built arena an hour's drive from the city's vibrant Centro district. It's previously been staged twice: in 1985 and 1991. Henceforth, according to Roberto Medina, the man whose brainchild it is, Rock In Rio will become an annual event. With an average daily attendance of some 200,000 people (yes, that's two HUNDRED THOUSAND people), it would fit Slane into the palm of its hand and still leave ample room for Wembley and Giants Stadium between thumb and little finger.

The line-up for the event was ambitious, eclectic, and ultimately catholic in taste. Everyone from Neil Young to Britney Spears, Red Hot Chili Peppers, REM, Oasis, Beck, James Taylor, Iron Maiden, Sting, Sheryl Crow and 5ive graced the main stage and tested their mettle against the forces of a string of colossal audiences. Some fared better than others (see panel for live review), and Dervish fared streets (or fields?) better than most.

The main stage was matched for sheer passion and chutzpah by numerous performers in the Roots Stage, alongside it. Performances were timed to dovetail easily so that audiences could move comfortably between the main and roots stages, imbibing the best that mainstream and world music has to offer their parched palates. And in temperatures that frequently soared to over 40 degrees, they needed sating - badly.

The Roots Stage boasted a formidable line-up: Amadou et Miriam from Mali, the magnificent Touré Touré also from Mali, and Cuba's Sintesis mixed it up with Dervish with the ease of a litter of tiger cubs, reunited after years of separation.

On Friday, the band warmed up with a well-received set, their early time slot (5pm) depriving them of the larger audience which was to drift in later in the evening. But their headlining position on Saturday night was a different story. It landed a killer punch to any doubters of the power of traditional music to cross borders, speak local dialects and insinuate itself into the hearts and hips of the most far-flung audience.

From the moment they took to the stage, the crowd went berserk. It was a sight and sound that we rarely get the pleasure to behold at home, being born of a race of hopelessly repressed northern Europeans. South of the equator, Brazilians need no tanks of lager to loose their passions, nor free their vocal cords. As soon as the band let rip with the opening chords of 'Apples In Winter' there was no sparing the horses. Tunes barely emerged from the stage before they were embraced and then devoured by the audience. Mexican waves rolled over the packed seats. There was enough communal goodwill here to cure cancer.

Cathy Jordan brandished her bodhrán stick like a bowie knife. Shane Mitchell, the band's box player, played out of his skin, stretching and compressing his customised accordion with the dexterity of a 3-card trickster. Michael Holmes on bouzouki and Seamie O'Dowd on guitar fenced their way through tunes, working the percussive force of the music through every string and fret of their instruments.

Brian McDonagh on mandola counterattacked from the other side of the stage, and Liam Kelly proved that when it comes to flute playing, he's achieved a mastery that's as sublime as it is fluently effortless. And then there was Tom Morrow's fiddle, cocking a snook, retreating coyly and jumping back into the fray, lending a Leitrim logic to the magnificent chaos of it all. And in between, behind, in front and within every tune and song there was the omnipresence of Cathy Jordan, her vocals soaring past the audience, barely in need of amplification. Her down home ease makes Garrison Keillor's Prairie Home Companion sound like a constricted country preacher by comparison. The truth of it all was that Dervish came home that Saturday night - in Rio.

Shane Mitchell draws up a chair in the dressing room minutes after the gig, sweat pouring from his forehead, adrenaline still pumping, his accordion almost vibrating an echo as it unwinds and exhales in the corner. His pleasure is as palpable as the hair that's standing on the back of the neck of well nigh everyone who's witnessed Dervish's exultant performance tonight.

"I've always said that Irish music can be presented the way it is", he smiles, "and listening to the Brazilians' comments round here now, they felt it was music played from the heart. I just think that Irish people are very hearty people. We do everything from the heart, including playing our music, and I think that was reflected tonight in the gig we played."

The band's on-stage demeanour was one that would have been equally at home in a snug or a rock concert. They simply reveled in the gabháil of one of the biggest audiences they, or anyone else have ever witnessed, anywhere.

"It exceeded all our expectations", Brian McDonagh, Dervish's mandola and Colombian tiple-meister admits. "We came with the notion that we might be playing to a couple of thousand people but I would say the crowd was far, far bigger than we would ever had anticipated. The Brazilians seem to latch on to the rhythm of Irish music far quicker than any other nation I've ever seen, but then they're used to the complicated rhythms of the samba and so on.

"It's definitely session music", Mitchell adds, "and we put a hell of a lot of time into arrangements to present it in a modern fashion, but it's still very much traditional music. We've grown up with this music, and playing here in what's called the world music stage, is the perfect place for us. Irish music is finally taking its place centre stage, and I'm very proud to be part of that.

Shane Mitchell is passionate about the need to hang on to what's original about traditional music.

"It's one of the few natural resources we have in Ireland", he avers. "We're a band from the north west of Ireland, we're not signed to any big international label, we play the biggest festival in the world - the music speaks for itself. The music we played tonight survived through hard times, it survived penal times, and its own strength carried it through. What we played tonight wasn't much different. People try to package Irish music: it doesn't happen that way."

Packaging bedamned indeed. After Dervish's concert, the punters couldn't get enough of their CD's, sold on the side of the stage. Dozens of outstretched hands immediately offered their Brazilian 20 Real notes in exchange for a dose of the manic brilliance they'd heard on stage. No merchandising stand, no flash poster campaigns. This was the music selling on its own merit. No mean feat for a band who parlay their goods without the scaffolding of a major record label. Self-sufficiency brought to Himalayan heights, more like.

"They say that Brazilians don't buy as many CD's at all, per head, as we would at home", Liam Kelly interjects, buoyed too by the sheer verve of the session, "but to look at them tonight you'd think they couldn't get enough of them!"

The phenomenal reaction of the crowd might come as a surprise to those who haven't witnessed Dervish live. They're no strangers to this kind of exultant response though, as Shane recounts past gigs.

"Irish music always was, and I think, always will be an export", he says. "And like the people, it's well able to travel! We just gave back what we got from the audience out there tonight."

Liam is sanguine about the different reactions of audiences at home and abroad.

"Playing at home is like selling ice to the Eskimos", he offers. "There's so many good sessions, and good musicians playing and I don't think we should ever forget that. And I don't think we'll ever get blasé about playing at home. Most Irish people do enjoy Irish music deep down within themselves. Sometimes it just takes time for them to open up to it."

Cathy nods in agreement.

"There's so much good music at home", she insists. "There's all the fantastic Planxty and Bothy Band records, but there are brilliant albums too which have only sold a small number of copies. We were asked tonight who our influences are, and they expect you to say somebody really big like Enya. But our influences are very organic, from Michael Coleman to local musicians all over the place."

Liam figured that they'd dropped anchor in a hospitable port as soon as he caught a glimpse of the locals dancing.

"Looking at Brazilians", he notes, "they have a natural rhythm for music anyway, and they picked up on the most complex rhythms we gave them tonight, and within seconds they were off with them. I just felt that tonight, it was so easy to enjoy it. The band responded to the audience, the audience responding to the band. It was like a game of tennis! You have to return!"

And how they returned with aplomb. Playing in the round, the entire band worked the crowd, never neglecting any section of the audience, willing them to whup it up and step it out with every reel and jig they could muster. Cathy Jordan smiles a smile of satisfaction at a job more than well done.

"It was so easy tonight", she grins. "I was so much at home out there. I enjoyed it from start to finish. I didn't want to come off! Generally you come to the end of a set and you're ready to finish. Tonight, though, it was pure adrenaline, and I'd have been happy to stay out there for another while! And any rhythm we threw at them, be it a mazurka, a reel, a jig or a waltz, they had it in seconds."

Jordan was as gobsmacked as the rest of the band by the audience reaction to one of their most poignant songs, 'Ar Eireann Ní Neosfhainn Cé Hí'. A mournful song, sung in both Irish and English, it's hardly the usual fodder for mass audiences crowding a field, more usually fed on come-all-ye fodder. Jordan thought long and hard before including it on the set list for the night.

"Some of us felt we should keep it all up tempo", she admits, "but it's one of my favourite songs, and it's very powerful. It gives a different angle to what we do. It's not all manic; it's also about soul and subtlety. It was a kind of a gamble, but even when we hit the high notes, they lapped it up even more. I really enjoyed singing it, throwing it out there, throwing a bit of Ireland out there!"

Rock In Rio distinguished itself in other ways too, apart from its penchant for bringing such an eclectic range of musicians together. There may have been over 200,000 people milling around a field, but there wasn't a hint of trouble throughout the two weekends. Even during the headliner gigs (Neil Young, Motorhead, Sting, REM et al), we were able to wend our way to the front of the crowd, anchoring ourselves just 4 or 5 rows from the stage, without a hint of aggro from the crowd. A far cry from the heady days when even Bruce Springsteen was spooked by the moshing in the front rows of Slane.

Cathy Jordan lost little time in basking in the glory of such a relaxed atmosphere.

"We had been warned before we came here not to bring credit cards, not to walk around alone, to be careful", she recounts. "But last night, walking through the throngs of heavy metal fans, who you might expect to be rowdier than most (or maybe not), absolutely no incidences. Lovely people. Even right up front, in the death metal crowd, in the thick of it, they were so obliging. If there was moshing, it was a case of 'Excuse me, would you mind if I mosh?'!"

So Dervish have survived, nay conquered Rio. 2001 marks their 10th anniversary. How can they possibly hope to follow that?

Liam smiles. "Well, we'll be releasing a compilation album in March. And who knows? We'll have to check the calendar for more. It's definitely a good start to the next ten years though!"

Brian is equally measured in his reading of the band's career path to date.

"We always knew it would be a long haul", he nods, "but we felt we would have had major record deals secured by now, but that has proven to be a bit more difficult than we anticipated. In some ways it's getting more difficult because the more albums we produce ourselves, and the more adept we become at looking after ourselves, the more we expect from any record label, and that's raising our bar all the time."

The lack of an attractive record deal reflects a deeper malaise in the record industry, Brian insists.

"The big labels have a mental block with Irish music," he asserts. "When you watch the reaction of the audience in Rio, it's as plain as the nose on your face that this is a highly sellable product, but the record labels don't seem to see it. Still, to be playing at the biggest festival in the world is a very fitting way for us to begin our 10th year."

In the aftermath of playing such a spectacular gig, Shane Mitchell insists on keeping the visor well off the band's field of vision. No matter how bright the sunlight, he's determined to keep his eye on the shadows, knowing that for every day in the sun there are countless others spent slogging on the road. Dervish may have hit the high point of their 10-year career, but they're acutely aware of the many other musicians who are struggling to keep on playing.

"Our own traditional arts are of fundamental value and they have to be supported", he insists. "There are hints that Síle De Valera is considering setting up a national council for the traditional arts, which actually exists in places like Washington and Sweden. We've gone abroad and had tours funded by foreign governments. I think that while the Arts Council does a very good job, a separate organisation would be good for the traditional arts. Now people are finally realising how important the traditional arts are."

Cathy chimes in with gusto.

"The music does a huge amount for tourism and gets little credit for it", she maintains. "The amount of people who come to Ireland for the music is phenomenal. It isn't easy financially to do what we do, and we'll never sell as many albums as Britney Spears, but we still have to do all the groundwork. So for ourselves, and for all the other musicians who find it hard to keep doing what they do, it'd be nice to get a little help from the government every now and again."

Shane makes it even plainer.

"If I was the Minister for the Arts, I'd give Matt Molloy, Joe Burke and Tommy Peoples state pensions for what they've done to enhance Ireland's identity abroad", he suggests. "They're national treasures so they should be recognised for that. We've seen a lot of bands come and go, and it's very sad to see that, some of them under serious financial pressure too. These are the people who have been promoting the good face of Ireland, so let the government come in now and support them."

Cathy is quick to point out one of the added benefits of Dervish's career path to date: the fact that they're together now, and not some 20, or even 10 years ago.

"Part of our success is also due to the timing", she suggests. "Planxty and The Bothy Band were fantastic but they didn't have technology on their side the way we do. To bring music to a huge stage, you need pick-ups on instruments. Years ago, you simply couldn't turn up a fiddle or 'twould screech back at you so you couldn't get the power out the front. Now with the aid of amps we can have the power of any rock band."

Liam points to the imaginative approach that festivals such as Rock In Rio has taken too, as a contributory factor to the success of bands playing so-called 'world music'.

"The term 'world music' was only created in the last 10 years or so", he notes, "and it's nice to see something as big as Rock In Rio would take on the job of saying: 'Yes, we'll have all the superstars, but let's put a world music stage on as well, and expose the audience to all kinds of music that they may never had heard before.' We couldn't survive doing what we do just playing Irish festivals."

"In the last two and a half years, we've been to South America twice before this, as well as China, Israel, Slovenia and Estonia", Seamie O'Dowd marvels, his voice ominously evaporated overnight. "Now, I think the stage Dervish are at, we've got the pleasure of playing everything from theatres with 500-600 people to rock festivals like this, and we've even found ourselves in jazz festivals as well."

Seamie's in no doubt about the impact of playing to audiences such as Rio's.

"It has to affect how we play", he nods, "because if you're confronted with a large enthusiastic audience, you're confronted with a deluge of goodwill from people and you have to look inside yourself to respond as best you can to that. It's a great feeling, bringing the music to the people, and when you get a response like that, it's the real pay dirt."

Dervish's pay dirt is ours too. One thing's for sure. They may keep traditional music safe for

the next generation - but they certainly won't embalm it. Ignite it maybe. But embalm it?

Never.

Dervish play HQ on Tuesday, February 13th.