Raining - On Lorient and In Music Fans' Hearts

Lorient's Celtic festival did not get off to a promising start on Sunday, a heavy Breton drizzle having fallen steadily on the town throughout the day. By mid-evening, however, the sky had miraculously cleared over the "Stade du Moustoir", a rather ugly functional-looking building in the centre of town. The "Stade du Moustoir" was far from being an ideal venue for the festival's grand finale - somehow when a stadium is two-thirds full it still manages to look half-empty, dampening the atmosphere before concerts even get off the ground.

But festival organisers had no choice in Lorient. The stadium was the only venue in town capable of holding the audience of 12-14,000 fans who turned up to the last night of the "Festival Interceltique". Unfortunately, organisers appeared to have seriously underestimated the sound power required to fill the stadium and the evening's concert got off to a rather slow start despite the inviting strains of Call to the Dance.

The ambience in the stadium was disappointingly subdued at the beginning of the evening but fortunately things hotted up shortly after the arrival of Galician gaitero Carlos Nuñez and fifteen minutes later the ever-popular Gilles Servat caused a stir with his classic song La Blanche hermine. Things were warming up - at last! Over the next hour l'Héritage des Celtes rolled out their hits like a smoothly-oiled machine, powering along on a mix of nostalgia and emotion before the stadium exploded beneath the traditional fireworks display. "What do you want to hear next?", thundered Dan Ar Braz, his voice tinged with demagoguery (or was he fighting back tears of genuine emotion?)

The audience rose to the occasion, calling Dan and the Héritage des Celtes back for two encores. The applause from the second encore had barely died down before the forty-strong band of musicians trooped back on stage once more and the entire stadium burst into a resounding rendition of l'Héritage's "anthem", Green Lands. The band took up the chorus, prolonging their final adieu - but, sadly, all good things must come to an end! The lights went up all too soon and thousands of Celtic music fans reluctantly made their way out of the stadium.
Missing Faces

L'Héritage des Celtes's final farewell was obviously slightly more difficult to organise than optimists had at first thought. The core members of the group were all out on stage on Sunday night - Dan Ar Braz conducting the band and playing guitar, Karen Matheson providing some superb vocals on Left in Peace), not to mention Nollaig Casey (on fiddle), Carlos Nuñez (on gaïta), Ronan Le Bars (Uilleann pipes) and guitarist Jacques Pellen.

But there were a few notable Breton faces missing in the overall line-up and - without any explanation from Dan - fans at Moustoir stadium were left wondering just what had happened to singer Yann-Fañch Kemener, flautist Jean-Michel Veillon, pianist Didier Squiban and - first and foremost - the famous Bagdad Kemper, who were supposedly "held up by other engagements" and had to be replaced at the last minute by a bagdad put together from various other groups.

On the whole the musicians who did turn up on Sunday night - like the choice of music - presented an image which remained faithful to l'Héritage des Celtes' tradition. Although the group like to present themselves as a "Celtic" brotherhood, they are in fact overwhelmingly Irish (if you discount the Galician touch brought by Carlos Nuñez). Which means when L'Héritage actually attack the Breton repertoire, their music becomes less interesting and puts across a message with a different slant. Dan Ar Braz plays on the same ambiguity when he evokes "Celtic" camaraderie and even when he expresses his pride at being Breton, the sentiment seems tinged with a strange undercurrent of bitterness.

Criticisms aside, it has to be acknowledged that in the course of the last decade Dan Ar Braz has brought together a bunch of truly excellent musicians. What's more, L'Héritage des Celtes have enjoyed immense popularity in Brittany and their fame has now spread to the rest of France. Rising beyond passing trends, Dan Ar Braz and l'Héritage des Celtes have brought together musical emotion and affirmations of regional identity, stamping their mark on French music history. Long live their Celtic inheritance!

Jérôme Samuel