Another night, another basement, another Guinness. Cocooned we me this time in the basement of The Admiral Bar were the good people of the Star Folk Club along with Annabelle Chvostek and John McMeechan who duly supplied that all important musical invigoration.
John McMeechan is replacing someone else at the last moment and does so with good grace and casual pace. Too much excitement isn’t good for anyone and his laidback and downbeat approach to the eternal one man and an acoustic guitar conundrum suits the audience to a tee.
Annabelle Chvostek and her two onstage Canadian compatriots, Tony Spina and Elizabeth Currie, were driven by a much more powerful musical motor. Best remembered, at least to these ears, for her vibrant and intelligent protest song “G20 Song”, she demonstrated that there was more to her than social conscience with the highlights of her set actually being from her new album “Be The Media”. A rougher, guitar powered, style – caused apparently, she said, by an obsession with a Fender Starburst - distinguished these songs and, while this new sound may not be what her fans of old might have expected, Annabelle Chvostek deserves credit for developing her anger into the kind of songs that should conquer the highbrow end of big city radio.
Click your heels three times and you will find yourself in Kansas so the saying goes. Or not, in which case all a man can do is get himself another Guinness.