Broad-shouldered, brickie-like and stocky (with a long-haired pigtail the only tell-tale sign of a career lived outside the construction industry) Dick Gaughan is a difficult one to pin down. The theory is that he's a hardline, hard-nosed Scottish nationalist, but a reconciliatory song such as Both Sides The Tweed refutes this. There are other spurious notions that Gaughan disputes throughout this barnstormer of a gig, particularly the media perception that he has been on the receiving end of a catalogue of misinformed and misinterpreted nonsense.
The performance is split, but both halves dovetail into a whole that is in equal parts provocative and passionate. If he's not agitating in one song, then he's bitterly ranting in another, all the while focusing his contempt on the likes of the "fat cats" that workingclass people make rich.
As much a lesson in simplicity as skulduggery and as much folk music as history lesson, this was a masterclass in tough, opinionated songwriting. While a valid criticism might be that there is little light and shade in the programme, suffice to say that Dick Gaughan has never claimed to be Val Doonican.
Dick Gaughan plays The Errigal Inn, Belfast on February tonight, Ti Chulainn Centre, Co Antrim, on Saturday, Galway's Roisin Dubh on Monday and Whelans, Dublin again on Tuesday
