This middle Monday of January, thanks to a scientific proof being snowballed by media hype, has been dobbed ‘Blue Monday’ – the most depressing day of the year. Thankfully for those upbeat enough to get down to Sneaky Pete’s, Geneva’s rollicking Mama Rosin were on hand to spice the evening up with their debut Scottish date.
Warming the night open were straightforward fourpiece Barret Wise. Dealing out sizeable portions of Dad rock, they had moments of inventive bluesey punk but most of the time remained almost offensively inoffensive. The outfit were introvertly competent session style musicians, topped with an embittered frontman bellowing lyrics as concertedly as a lyricist more than content in his own ability. Overall, however, they never tried to be the most arresting start to the evening.
Have been flexing their brooding Celtic-Indie muscles in Edinburgh for over a year now, The Stormy Seas barely gave the venue chance to get the next round before sweeping onstage. Lead by a galloping acoustic guitar duel the quintet are kept up to speed with engrossing folk flavour drumming and flaying banjo.
With the catapulted success of Frightened Rabbit and Broken Records over the last year, it’s hard to ignore the influence in unbridled Caledonia howls throwing the misty lyrics at the spotlights as if they were full moons.
But without any fancy fenders overbearing string section to distract, the lads have at etched a focused sound as a consistently support outfit at decent sized venues for some time to come, if they aren’t headlining these stages by the time the year is out.
Even with it being their first time across the border, Mama Roisin slipped into Sneaky Pete’s as comfortably as a house band would on any middle Monday in the kind of New Orleans dens that’s spawned their swamp influenced tunes. Lead duo Cyril “Jeter” Yeterian and Robin A. Girods’ have a ferociously simple take on a Cajun and Creole, using little more than guitars and accordions, but wrapped in the cheeky charm of skinny jeans and sideburns.
Within two songs, the warm sound had simmer the first few rows into a version of ‘Stricly Come Boogie Woogie’ – repetitive lyrics, at times unintelligibly un-English, batted back and forth on stage allowing a good dozen of the crowd to concentrate on getting down and dirty.
The effortless musicianship from the trio was distilled into the tempered ‘Je Vas Mon Chemin’, giving the venue a chance to mop it’s collective brow and the band to gradually built the pace back to their 2009 single, the rabble rousing ‘Le Pistolet’ with an efficiency that makes Gogol Bordello look bloated.
The outfit are easily one decent airplay slot away from the kind of cult following their ability deserves, as their simmering version of New Orleans Cajun classic, ‘Bon Temps Roulet‘, underlined. Ablaze with an inspirational accordion jive, sparked by a pounding floor-tom, stage-stomp.
With the frenzy they had created in front of them, an improvised encore demanding they ‘play something Scottish’ saw surely the invention of the Cajun-Celidh, with an improvised tartan accordion vibe seeing arms being linked and spun akimbo. The trio ended with an acoustic singalong, in the mix of the crowd – many of which may look back on ‘Blue Monday 2011’ as Mama Monday.
Mama Roisin play: