- Music
- 11 Apr 01
Whirlygig The Shelter, Dublin
Whirlygig
The Shelter, Dublin
There’ll be no slouchily cosy play-for-your-pints seisun tonight: this ten-strong mob storm onto the Shelter stage with the sharpsuited purposefulness of hitmen crashing a gambling den, fedoras cocked, pinstripes flashing like searchlights. They even – like any Dick Tracy cartoon villain would – carry violin cases. Although, in Whirlygig’s case, seeing as they’re the most exciting trad band this side of Kila – they just use them to carry their violins. Probably.
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How odd, though, that in the same season that finds Neil Hannon abandoning the studied iconography of the haberdasher’s in favour of honest art in street clothes, a band as exceptional as Whirlygig should choose to obscure their gifts behind a Concept, to raid attic, thriftshop and market-stall for Outfits That Will Get Them Noticed. As if their ability to traipse through a planetful of musical styles (creepy Tom Waitsian whorehouse-blues, delicately unfolding Japanese origami-songs, slow incense-reeking Kashmiri belly-swivellers) - while still being fundamentally Irish-traditional in execution - isn’t already wholly unique. And while the Bugsy Malone act is a bit of fun, it somehow diminishes them, makes them less of a world-class proposition than they are.
So go for the suits, if you must – but stay for the hyper-imaginative arrangements, the wonderful playing, the deft shape-shifting melodies. And you can always shut your eyes.