CeltusCeltus| Date |
11/10/99 |
| Length |
45 mins |
How exactly did I first hear of Celtus? I believe it was when my parents saw them supporting Paul Carrack and were so impressed they bought the first album, Moonchild. And when the second came out bought that, eventually by this stage I had heard enough good things about them that I decided to give them a listen, and I also was impressed. So when it turned out that Mike Oldfield was touring following the release of Guitars, or was it TB3, anyway, and that Celtus would be supporting, we coughed up the money for the tickets only to find out a couple of days before that Celtus would not be performing. It was still a good concert but not as good as it would have been.
Anyway, when it turned out that I saw an advert saying that Deacon Blue were touring I was unsure, £20 is quite a lot for a lowly student, but then a couple of weeks later seeing that Celtus were supporting, that gave me a secondary reason, and so I got my ticket. Unfortunately, since I was at uni at the time, and no-one I know here were big DB or Celtus fans, it meant that I had to go it alone...
Whatever, I got there and on they walked, and to be honest I was surprised, they were young, I mean probably only a couple of years older than me, but from their music, Celtic-y, rock-y, pop-y, sort of thing I imagined slightly older. But it just shows how much I know.
They started with Waiting for the Rain, a very typical Celtus track, catchy chorus, flute, yet a strange dark feel to it, while still retaining a mellow feel.
A classic ballad, light, catchy, sweet, and yet not overdone on the saccharine. Something that's hard to achieve.
Then we had the first single, a Radio 2 single of the week, to give you an idea of the style. Wide Awake's a very mellow feel with a catchy chorus, very R2, with no disrespect. It's likeable, but not incredibly inspired. The Awakening is a fantastic instrumental piece, heavily featuring the flute, not to everyone's tastes but still impressive.
Touch You, the second single, and better than the first, not due to the chorus, but the verses that have a dark heart-broken feel to them, that works so well with his voice. Bubble is next, a good solid track, which is probably one of my favourites off both albums.
In my opinion the first single should have been Touch You, then the title track of the second album, Portrait, the next track, it has so much more to offer than Wide Awake, and it has much more of the darkness that Celtus manage to use to combat the occasional tweeness of their choruses. This is simply superb. The guitar work, on the final reprise was simply incredible.
To finish was the final track off the first album. We Two Are One, a very ethereal feel, that like Portrait, and a couple of other tracks, manages to steer clear of the occasionally too light chorus, and instead retains a full emotive moody feel to the whole song.
On the whole the Deacon Blue crowd were rather impressed with the group, and I can well imagine that a fair few albums were sold that night.
Score 8/10
Page last updated on 16th October 1999
Maintained by Julian Fletcher (julian@innocent.com)