Lorna Irvine reviews 'a wonderful, exuberant experience' that's part of this year's Celtic Connections.
Amadou Bagayoko and Mariam Doumbia are the most wonderful love story. They met at a school for the blind in Mali in 1977 and have been together ever since. Their first release outside of Africa was in 1997, but they went global in 2005 with Dimanche a Bamako. Today, they are rightly lauded as superstars, their music a hot stew of Afropop, dub, funk, psych and western pop.
Tonight's show was billed as Eclipse, 'a multi-sensory show', evocative of their own experiences of living as a blind couple with lights dimmed and smells of their homeland wafting in; sadly, the old Health and Safety clauses put paid to such an ambitious experiment.
No matter: they are amazing, with a frenetic charismatic backing band. Opener Chante Chante undulates softly at first, with Amadou's masterful guitar arpegios dripping honey, but soon the pace picks up.
It's hard to resist the rich expressive voice of Mariam and the way she sighs 'Yeah' as a song ends, or their leaping grinning bass player. Wati (Time) is the first track to really cut loose- a marching, militaristic percussion-based stomper which has a couple of people dancing at the side of the grand hall. By the celebratory paean to their home, Africa Mon Afrique, at least a third of the room is up bouncing, and the Concert Hall staff are miserably trying to keep order. Concern mounts, as more and more people dance wildly in the aisles to the increasingly extended jams. It's incredibly surreal, like being in a 50s movie where the teens are being told by church elders to stop their filthy rock 'n' roll dancing- only here, the age group is right across the board. Towards the end, during massive disco-tinged workout Soul Fire, the whole room is one giant spring, and the worried-looking ushers admit defeat, with even a few of them wiggling their hips.
Amadou and Mariam are like one big joyful virus, and the smiles say it all. A wonderful, exuberant experience. YEAH!
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