Barcelona's Independent Review Website

The Duke Special
2009-03-18 Sala Apolo (La2) As part of the El Feile, Spain's festival of Irish and Celtic culture, which includes diverse representations of modern and traditional Irish life from comedy and sport to dance, live music and theatre, Duke Special headlined a showcase of emerging talent from Northern Ireland. Supported by the very elegant group The Sleeping Years, it was an evening of quality music with a relaxed and appreciative crowd there to witness. El Feile has been running for five years but this was the first appearance in Barcelona for Duke Special, aka Peter Wilson, the singer/song-writer from Belfast. Touring on the back of most recent album, last year's "I Never Thought This Day Would Come," the band performed in a slimmed down configuration with Wilson accompanied by a single percussionist. On first glimpse Duke Special are a mass of contradictory influences. Yet this dread-locked goth-faced folk/indie/vaudeville performer with a rather cabaretish performance style manages to create a truly cohesive sound. Accompanied solely by his multi-percussionist, "Temperance Society" Chip Bailey, as opposed to the full band he can sometimes be seen with there was still plenty to keep your attention on stage. Duke Special's delivery goes between deathly serious balladeering to melodramatic, quirky, gesticulating theatricality, often from one song to the next. Their music is beautifully written and Wilson's voice is diverse and strong enough to draw comparisons with Antony (and the Johnsons) Heggarty's, whilst maintaining his attractive Northern Irish lilt throughout. From pop fluff on "Sweet, Sweet Kisses," through wry, world-weary shoegazing on "I Never Thought This Day Would Come" all the way to outright, shouty mayhem on "Flesh and Blood Dance" the set keeps the audience guessing. The band also manages to make their performance incredibly inclusive, with crowd interaction, walkabouts, singalongs and a nice line in witty banter. But it's, surprisingly, percussionist Chip Bailey who really steals the show. He plays a multitude of noisy apparatus from kit and buffalo drums to keys, whisks, spoons and a strange device called a strumpf fiddle (see video). Dressed like an ageing veteran of the Crimean war and running about the stage to smash cymbals and kick bass drums, he may well be Duke Special's secret weapon for an already formidable band.