Siansa at Farnham Maltings

Went to see Siansa with Bill and Val - Ken was also there, a regular reader of my blog!
Steve Winchester was suporting, and played 5 cool songs to start with, including an Irish song which Siansa thought was terrific :-D
Siansa kicked off with 3 jigs, excellently played, then some traditional songs. I amused myself by trying to pick the best musician of the outfit. It was close, but I picked Peter O'Brien, the bodhran player from Belfast, after effortlessly providing intricate rhythms for a set of Irish polkas. Turns out he was all-Ireland champion! Fantastic. Tim O'Dowd was very good on the pipes and low whistle, but I didn't like his singing voice. Other Tim was very good as well, on pipes and whistles, despite not having rehearsed with the band (they played a few tricks on him - not deliberately though!)
Geoffrey Pollett, the fiddle player, sang a few of his own songs, good ones too. He sounds terribly well-spoken English, sounding very odd in an Irish band! The harp player, Harriet Earis, was excellent - it's a rare thing to hear someone playing the Irish harp round our way.
Dave Henderson, the guitar/mandola player, was also by far the best singer, but only got to sing the one song!
Also, as a surprise, they had a top Irish dancer, Martin, who used to be lead dancer in The Lord Of The Dance (Riverdance's successor). He was truly amazing, lightning on his feet, but wrecked the door on whih he was supposed to have danced and had to hammer the floor instead!
The atmosphere was great at the gig, but at about 10 past 11 the fire alarms went off in the middle of a set of reels and, althogh Darren told us there was no fire, there was no way we could hear the music over the din. Me and Bill decided to call it a night at this point. Felt sorry for the band though.
Val won a folking.com waistcoat on the raffle - I look forward to seeing her wearing it :-D