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Review: 'MY DARLING CLEMENTINE'
'Dublin, DC Club, 28th November 2014'   


-  Genre: 'Alt/Country'

Our Rating:
W&H have attended shows in some unlikely places since the site’s inception back in the mists of 2002, but to the best of our knowledge we’ve never been to a gig in what outwardly appears to be a row of (admittedly smart) Georgian-style dwelling houses.

We’re feeling a little nonplussed as we stand on the corner of Dublin’s Camden Row, diagonally opposite the Meath Hospital and the intrigue only intensifies when – after clocking our obvious confusion – a kindly soul tells us we should climb the few steps to the end house and press the doorbell. The venue for this evening’s soiree is apparently in the basement of said structure.

Still feeling a mild sense of unease, we stab at the buzzer and are rapidly admitted to a hallway. Following a staircase down, we pass a large, wooden, golf club-styled honours board engraved with the names of illustrious former members of the club, including none other than Lord Randolph Churchill: yes, that’s right, as in Winston Churchill’s dad.   Welcome to the subterranean (and actually extremely welcoming) world of the Dublin Conservative Club.

After the surprise wears off, I negotiate the snooker room to access the gents, buy some drinks and we settle down for a night of consummate entertainment with ace, Birmingham-based husband and wife team MY DARLING CLEMENTINE; tonight making their Dublin debut after several rapturously-received Irish performances at the May 2014 Kilkenny Roots Festival.

This duo had already received their fair share of critical bouquets and had been pursuing individual solo careers prior to teaming up and sending the critics into raptures over their gritty, Nashville country-inspired debut LP ‘How Do You Plead?’ and its equally well-received 2013 follow-up ‘The Reconciliation?’ They’ve spent most of the last three years on the road and with further European and US dates already pencilled in for spring 2015, they show no sign of slowing down yet.

When W&H last encountered Lou Dalgleish and Michael Weston King in Kilkenny, they were performing as a quartet with double bassist Martin Cox and long-time collaborator/ pedal steel meister Alan Cook in tow. Tonight, however, they’re on their own; armed with just their two voices, Michael’s acoustic guitar, loads of barbed interplay and the cream of the two albums’ meticulously-observed songs of love, loss and domestic disharmony.

Yet, even shorn of their recorded counterparts’ embellishments, the selections they wheel out for us tonight remain among the grittiest country-flavoured songs penned for many a moon.  Michael’s guitar amp gives him some gyp early on (“my husband’s having a few problems with his knob,” Lou quips to the delight of the old school crowd) but songs such as ‘Nothing Left To Say’, a strident ‘Going Back To Memphis’ and beautifully-poised ‘Put Your Hair Back’ are all soon dispatched with feeling and you can hear a pin (or more accurately, a snooker ball) drop as the sparse, country-soul ache of the glorious ‘Our Race Is Run’ reaches its emotional climax.

Superficially, of course, it’s hard not to compare King and Dalgliesh with the likes of Gram Parsons and Emmy-Lou Harris, or more specifically George Jones and Tammy Wynette, especially as another of tonight’s highlights is Lou’s feisty ‘No Matter What Tammy Said (I Won’t Stand By Him)’, written in answer to Wynette’s legendary ‘Stand By Your Man’. However, while the duo enjoy plenty of spirited, but affectionate banter ‘tween songs and also have the supremely bitchy ‘I Bought Some Roses’ in reserve, their canon is also enriched by songs with a much broader appeal such as the mariachi-tinged ‘King Of The Carnival’ and ‘Ashes, Flowers & Dust’s tenderly-sketched portrait of bereavement.

They finish off with a spirited ‘Goodbye Week’ and a suitably resigned ‘100, 000 Words’ but are quickly called back for a well-deserved encore involving a well-chosen George Jones cover, a dip into King’s solo catalogue (a timely, James Joyce-inspired ‘Endless Wandering Stars’) and finally the gospel-tinged ‘Oh Mary, Don’t You Weep’: a heartfelt tribute to the late, great and already much-missed Pete Seeger.
  author: Tim Peacock/ Photo: Kate Fox

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MY DARLING CLEMENTINE - Dublin, DC Club, 28th November 2014