OmTown Music
Gaelic Storm plays at Andrews
Amphitheatre Saturday.
Musical storm of
Titanic proportions
Gaelic Storm rides
By Burl Burlingame
the tidal wave of a
major movie success
Star-BulletinJames Cameron's film epic "Titanic" caused as much comment on its depiction of class differences as it did for recreating one of the century's most romantic tragedies. The movie sails along stiffly until the working-class hero, in the midst of a icy, upper-crust dinner party, whispers, "You wanna go to a REAL party?" to the starchy, repressed heroine.
Down in steerage, they dance themselves silly to what appears to be a funky Celtic garage band, an alcohol-fueled rhythm unit on full blowers, a giddy blast of blue-eyed soul music. It's one of the high points of the movie.
Studio demographics-chasers later quantified it; surveys show it was one of three favorite scenes among audiences.
The groove was courtesy a real band -- the five-piece Gaelic Storm. And director Cameron didn't have to travel far from Hollywood to find them. Gaelic Storm is a fixture at O'Brien's pub in Santa Monica, the California town that has become Dublin-by-default for throngs of Irish immigrants.
Gaelic Storm plays Saturday night at the University of Hawaii at Manoa, one of the closing acts of the UH Summer Session.
Like the passengers of Titanic, four of the five members come from over the sea to the New World: Patrick Murphy, vocalist and accordionist, is from Cork City, Ireland; Steve Twigger, guitarist and mandolinist, is from Coventry, England; Shep Lonsdale, djembe and tupan drummer, is from London, England; Samantha Hunt, fiddler, is from Zambia; and Stephen Wehmeyer, bodhran beater, comes all the way from Olean, New York.
Their music, judging by their first album,
"Gaelic Storm," is suffused with the notion of voyaging, not just the sense of passage, but the melding of cultures. Their signature rhythmic drone comes from blending the oomph of the throaty African djembe drum with the fluttery Irish bodhran, a kind of goatskin tom-tom carried like a shield.
"If it works, musicians use it, no matter where they are," said Twigger, speaking from the airport (Gaelic Storm is also playing on Lanai). "For example, using the djembe isn't that unusual -- any musician traveling on a ship might have heard it and loved the sound, and that's all it takes. The song 'Whup Jamboree' on our album is what is called a 'checkerboard' shanty -- it was sung by both white and black sailors."
Cameron's crew discovered Gaelic Storm at O'Brien's and admired the group's energy and flash. The band was contracted to provide the steerage party music, and dutifully delivered a tape of precisely rendered period music. But that didn't have the teetering edge Cameron wanted, and so they locked themselves in a room with a recorder, their instruments and several cases of Guinness, and played themselves into a ragged, boozy, glorious frenzy. Perfect.
They duped the music themselves during the steerage party scene, during which Cameron declared, "Gaelic Storm rules!" The technician-minded director, noted for an autocratic hand with actors, treated the instrumentalists in Gaelic Storm like royalty.
"Shep put on the costume, combed his hair and looked in the mirror, and said, 'Oh my God -- I'm my grandfather,' " said Twigger. "We all came to America ourselves on the cheap, and if we had been alive in 1912, we would have been in steerage on Titanic. It was a sobering thought."
Although they're on screen for only four minutes, the band spent several weeks in Mexico on the set, where star Leonardo DiCaprio developed an enthusiasm for Irish music, sitting in with the band when it jammed, playing along on spoons, fiddle and uileann pipes.
"Celtic music is doing very well right now, because it's like the blues; it's the people's music," said Twigger. "It's played to mark the trials and tribulations of life."
Gaelic Storm became the film's house band, playing the wrap party and the movie premiere.
"Every professional band needs a good demo video of themselves," said Twigger at the time. "But not many bands can say theirs cost $200 million and was directed by James Cameron."
Gaelic Storm
In concert: 7 p.m. Saturday
