The Waterboys
- 5 hours ago
- 3 min read
The Waterboys have never been particularly interested in staying in their lane. Folk? Rock? Celtic psychedelia? Americana? A bit of everything, usually played loudly and with enough conviction to make genre classifications look increasingly ridiculous. At Roig Arena in Valencia last night, Mike Scott and his travelling band of musical renegades turned their Fisherman’s Blues Revue into something considerably more entertaining than a trip down memory lane: a rowdy, beautiful, gloriously unpredictable celebration of what happens when great songs refuse to grow old.
The opening was anything but tentative. “Don’t Bang The Drum” kicked the doors open before “A Girl Called Johnny” sent the volume north. Then came “The Whole Of The Moon” and the arena erupted into one gigantic chorus. It is one of those songs that has somehow escaped its own era completely; remove the eighties production gloss and it still stands there, enormous and slightly unhinged, while several thousand people happily scream every word back at Mike Scott.
And Scott looked like he was having a bloody good time. There is something wonderfully contrary about The Waterboys. At an age when many artists of their vintage are carefully polishing the family silver, Scott continues to rummage around in the attic, pull out old songs, shake the dust off them and throw them back into the room. “The Raggle Taggle Gypsy” brought the first real taste of the band's Celtic side, followed by the magnificent “Sweet Thing / Blackbird / Wild Jig”, where violin, keyboards and guitars collided in precisely the sort of glorious mess that has always made The Waterboys so difficult — and so rewarding — to categorise.
The centre of gravity, though, was inevitably Fisherman’s Blues. Released in 1988, the album represented Scott's great escape from conventional rock and into Irish folk, traditional music and the deep well of roots Americana. Nearly four decades later, those songs haven't become museum pieces. They still feel loose around the edges, still capable of taking a left turn without warning, still alive enough to make an arena full of people forget they're sitting in an arena.
Then Steve Earle walked on. Suddenly this was less Celtic folk-rock revue and more a meeting of two musical universes that have always been closer than they first appear. Earle and Scott tore through “Copperhead Road”, “Guitar Town” and “My Old Friend The Blues”, with the Waterboys providing a suitably muscular backing band. Earle's battered Americana and Scott's Celtic romanticism made surprisingly perfect bedfellows, while Steve Wickham's violin provided the thread connecting the whole strange, sprawling operation.
There were quieter moments, naturally. “The Stolen Child” pulled the room down into something more intimate, while newer material such as “Come Back To Galway” showed that Scott isn't simply touring the past. The old songs may be the reason people bought the tickets, but the musical conversation is still happening in the present.
Then the party started again. “Bang On The Ear” was all swagger and mischief. “Galway Girl” pushed the Roig Arena further towards full-blown Celtic knees-up territory, and suddenly the idea of this being a carefully curated legacy show became laughable. This was a band still capable of making a large room feel gloriously out of control.
And then, inevitably, came “Fisherman’s Blues”. You could almost feel the song arriving before the first notes landed. The reaction was huge, but what made it work wasn't simply nostalgia. The song still possesses that peculiar Waterboys magic: romantic without becoming sentimental, earthy without losing its grandeur, and just scruffy enough around the edges to avoid becoming a stadium anthem by committee. The entire arena sang it back to Scott, and for once the cliché about communal concert moments actually seemed justified.
The final move — “Will The Circle Be Unbroken”, with Scott and Earle together — brought the evening neatly back to its roots. A traditional song, two veteran musicians, one very large room and a crowd that had spent the night travelling from Scotland and Ireland to Nashville and back again without ever leaving Valencia.
The Waterboys don't sound like a band preserving its past. They sound like a band still arguing with it. That distinction matters. Because while Fisherman’s Blues may have provided the headline, Thursday night's show wasn't really about 1988. It was about the strange, stubborn life these songs have acquired since then — and the fact that Mike Scott still knows exactly how to let them off the leash.
The Roig Arena may be built for massive modern spectacles, but last night it belonged to fiddles, battered guitars, Celtic melodies, American highways and a roomful of people singing “The Whole Of The Moon” at the top of their lungs. Not bad for a Thursday night.
Words and photos: Rhyan Paul
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