Having one excellent singer/songwriter on the bill is good enough; two is spoiling us. Packed to the gods with an audience thankfully louder and more appreciative than the previous night's gig at Killarney (prompting a running joke that almost overshadowed the singers' skills at diplomacy), the first hour was Shawn Colvin's.
She's a fragile-looking woman with a tendency to underplay her strengths, although not having a backing band probably made her seem more vulnerable on stage. Nevertheless, her songs are a superb combination of the tender and the tensile, and she blends new material from her excellent Whole New You album with older songs. There are few laughs in the songs but quite a few between. The mixture proves a satisfying balance, but, you get the impression that with a band behind her Colvin might have soared.
Mary Chapin Carpenter, meanwhile, soared from the off. Backed by a band that knew the difference between light and shade, the music was full-blooded Americana rock, underpinned by instinctive dynamics and bolstered by more guitars than you'd ever see in Waltons' window (15! - not all played at once, of course).
Chapin Carpenter is that most unusual of US singer/songwriters: she lances her melancholic material with paper cut sharpness, singing songs of mostly delicate matters from the perspective of an adult. This Shirt is poignant reminiscence personified. Cover version, Lucinda Williams's Passionate Kisses, is kicked into overdrive, while Shut Up And Kiss Me is, by necessity, a request it would be churlish to refuse. At the close, Colvin joined the headliner for an extended bout of good-vibes, around-the-campfire goofing, joking with the audience, jesting with each other and just being themselves. Cosy and winsome? Not a bit of it. Honest emotions? Spot on.
