Alan Stivell & His Band

The veteran Breton musician Alan Stivell presents a bit of a conundrum. He is seen as the keeper of a musical tradition and credited with single-handedly reviving the Celtic harp, yet his love of his instrument clearly goes far beyond the traditional.

Stivell seems much more interested in the sounds and music his instrument can make than in the heritage to which it belongs.

He is as much a child of the 1970s rock movement as of his father, who built a Celtic harp when his son was a child and impassioned him to the instrument.

Supported by Eleanor McEvoy, this was the first in the Acoustica series of concerts at the Olympia Theatre in Dublin.

As such, it featured a renowned proponent of an instrument that, when played solo, embodies the word acoustic.

He was backed by a three-piece band whose members were bedecked with all the trappings of the modern rock world - Gibson Les Paul, Gibson SG bass and a shiny 10-piece drum kit, plus electronic backing tracks.

Stivell's prototype harp, which he introduced at the outset, reflects this meeting of the traditional and the contemporary, with its 40 strings and 40 guitar pick-ups.

But despite this technology, the harp is an acoustic instrument par excellence. It simply doesn't work as well when part of a rock ensemble: the remarkable scope and range of the instrument are fettered, sonically hemmed in by the accompaniment.

On the rock songs, the instrument merely twinkles in the mix, while Stivell tinkles on the strings, adding melody in an entirely standard way, not unlike a lead guitarist.

When unaccompanied, however, both player and instrument come alive, and the harp breathes under his touch. Like the piano, but unlike almost every other instrument, the Celtic harp allows for a much greater range of rhythm and polyphony, qualities better expressed in more traditional arrangements.

During the final song, an all-out rock fest, Stivell's apparent enthusiasm for the almost camp rock element exploded. Grinning like a child, he leaped into the audience, dragging much of the crowd to their feet and initiating a sort of ring-a-ring o' roses dance around the narrow aisles of the Olympia. It was a fitting image to end on: the ultimate in Bono-style histrionics.