CARA DILLON

Live Review

Town Hall, Birmingham

If Cara Dillon were a siren then the wariest of old seadogs would be lured by her enchanting voice and appropriately enough as she opened with a sea shanty style song about true love.

Cara Dillon

Dillon's gorgeous tones then lent themselves to Rise Up My Darling which is a traditional song she sang in her native Irish and was accented with the smooth sound of the fiddle before Dillon took up the penny whistle to finish of the song with an instrumental.

The band admitted they were winging the concert somewhat as they had little time to get everyone together and rehearse and many of the songs were from their forthcoming album A Thousand Hearts, which is due out next year. The audience did exercise great patience at times as there was an inordinate amount of tuning, mostly by husband Sam Lakeman, which was covered by Dillon's stories of their family. 

Dillon really got to show off her gorgeous voice with a couple of soft ballads, first Donald, about whale hunters and the wives left behind and then the Garden Valley where she was accompanied by Lakeman providing the soft tones on a grand piano.

Avalanche was another from the impending album which had more of a country feel backed by dual guitars of Lakeman and Ed Boyd this moved smoothly into 18 Years about an eligible young woman looking for a husband which was a traditional storytelling song with a bluegrass feel

Bright Morning Star was a soft ballad accented wonderfully by some really smooth fiddle playing which added to the tune as it built to a much fuller sound.

There was more of a blues feel to the Lass of Glenshee where Dillon, after enrapturing the audience with her voice, once again pulled out the penny whistle to join in the big instrumental finish.

By contrast she went back to just her voice simply accompanied again by Lakeman on piano before moving into the traditional ballad As I Roved Out.

Brought back for an encore she treated her fans to another traditional jaunty Irish tune, Johnny, Lovely Johnny, ending the set with a wonderfully haunting version of the Parting Glass.
You can also catch Dillon singing as part of the Transatlantic Sessions on BBC iplayer.