First established in the late Victorian era, Crane Lane is surely Cork's loveliest venue in contemporary times. It proudly displays fixtures and fittings from the 1930s and '40s and – as their website says – there ain't no tacky mirror balls to be found within its' comfortable, relaxed surroundings.
What Crane Lane does offer, though, is a fine, expansive main room for its' performances and an across-the-board diary of events that does it proud in these pay-to-play times. Many of its' shows are free entrance affairs and even when they do charge admission, the fees are impressively reasonable when stacked up against most of the competition.
So it's the perfect place to become acquainted with FARRELL SPENCE'S emotionally-charged music in a live setting. A Winnipeg native, but until recent times a Vancouver-based performer, she's currently adopted Cork as her home base and is making regular forays into the city and its' satellite venues to spread the gospel about her excellent debut album 'A Town Called Hell'.
Tonight's a little bit special, too, because Farrell's augmented by several special guests, including her Canadian friends Donna Partridge (vocals) and fiddler Linda Bull, along with talented Corkonians Eoin O'Regan (guitar) and pedal steel meister David, whose surname I shamefully miss.
Linda, Donna and Farrell are among the friendliest folk you're ever liable to meet and before the show, Linda reveals that another highly-recommended, W&H-endorsed musician(Kevin House) is one of her neighbours back home. Wow, it sure is a small world these days.
A similar intimacy prevails when they take the stage together. Yes, Farrell's own past (a gambling grifter for a father, a bank robber for a first boyfriend, a celebrated folk-singing mother) is colourful enough to have bequeathed her material aplenty, but her ghostly, Americana-tinged music has a resonance and depth all its' own which transfers beautifully to the live arena.
It's reflective, introverted music with the many highlights seeping out furtively and creeping up on you rather than grabbing you by the scruff of the neck. 'A Town Called Hell' itself finds Farrell singing of “heading down to the water, take a walk on the tracks/ jump on a boxcar and never come back”, but there's a tangibly homesick longing in there too, regardless of the restlessness of the lyric and is particularly haunting, rippling and resplendent courtesy of the added ache of David's evocative pedal steel tonight.
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A string of hard-bitten, experience-soused songs linger long after they've wound down. In feel at least, the chiming sparseness of 'Boys Like You & Girls Like Me' still recalls the Red House Painters for this reviewer, and Farrell chokes back the lyric (“you think your love is gonna change me, but it's gonna make me break your heart”) from the point of view of someone whose heart hasn't stopped aching for a long, long time. The way it segues so magnificently into a fiddle-led, bluegrass-inspired snatch of 'You Are My Sunshine' at the end is both memorable and wonderfully ironic.
Spence is capable of re-inventing songs in her own sorrowful and spirited image too. Mary Gauthier is a hard act to follow at the best of times, yet Farrell's version of her 'I Drink' – with its' theme of TV dinners, domestic violence and alcoholic defeat – is hugely successful on its' own terms, especially with the added impetus of David's pedal steel sighing evocatively over the top of it. It's even more effective when followed by a charged version of 'Losing You Again' where Farrell and Donna hit the yearning harmonies to perfection and Linda's descriptive violin adroitly colours in the spaces.
But really it's all great. Indeed, while Farrell Spence's Myspace page may introduce her music as being capable of “making grown men weep in their beer since 2005”, her sparse, melancholic muse is a dead cert seduction for anyone who's ever fallen in love with someone they probably shouldn't have, regardless of time, place or sex.
(http://www.farrellspence.com)
(http://www.myspace.com/farrellspence)
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