Laugharne Festival

14/04/2010

Bedroom secrets with Fionn Regan @ Laugharne Festival

 Fionn Regan
The Boathouse, Laugharne
4/5

Having been billed as an intimate gig, the reality is more like personal space invasion. We find ourselves in a small bedroom in Dylan Thomas' final home, initially feeling a little uncomfortable at being handshake-close to Irish musician Fionn Regan as he plays his rich hued songs for a handful, but full house, audience.

It's the weekend of the Laugharne Literary Festival. Elsewhere in the small halls and pub back rooms of this legendary little town, poets, authors and biographers are reading choice portions from their works, a Manic Street Preacher is in conversation, and the entire cast of Twin Town are reassembling for the now-annual read through of the film script.

Starting with ‘Hey Rabbit’, Regan's voice is firm and his acoustic playing, delicate and deft. The room is so tiny, with only space enough for three rows of four seats, and maybe another six or eight lining the side wall, that we could be forgiven for thinking we are in Regan's own bedroom, and just like close friends, we just happen to be hanging out as he maybe plays a song he's just written, or is running through ideas, composing as he plays. At the end of each song, his broad smile connects with those directly in his direct line of sight and we hear the sea lapping the shore, below the open window behind him. This must feel very strange to him also, but as the set progresses, a strange unity is developing with everyone present, and we are all now linked in a very special way.

Former single ‘Put A Penny In The Slot’ is sung with more feeling and intonation than on the album and ‘Hunters Map’ has filled my eyes with tears with its lyrical genius. Most songs today come from his Mercury Nominated album The End Of History, as the new one contains mainly full band arrangements. One beautiful exception is ‘Violent Demeanour’, a song of passionate and dramatic tension, over purring Spanish-type guitar.

“I don't know any more songs,” he tells us after a while, but an unorchestrated conspiracy reminds him that he does, so he charms us further with the newly renamed ‘Under Milk Wood Typewriter’.

Then a photographer from the Independent newspaper asks us all to move downstairs to the parlour. The newly forged little gang are staged, lounging by the fireplace or sitting at Regan's feet, as he encores with ‘Be Good Or Be Gone’, and this weirdly wonderful event comes to its end.

Jane Oriel