Petunia & the Vipers, the MAC, Belfast

By Hornby

Mr Petunia, of Petunia and the Vipers, has an amazing voice. Stop you in your tracks amazing. On record he croon’s, intones and yodels with such beauty all that can be done is to install a repeat button for the repeat button.

It is this kind of thing that makes it all the more disappointing when your expectations aren’t quite met live. Now, I firmly believe you are most often only disappointed by your own expectations, and this would most often be the case when I am not as thrilled by a band live as I would have hoped. But some times, the band actually is to blame; Petunia and the Vipers Upstairs in the MAC was one of those occasions.

Not that they were terrible, not by a long stretch, it was just not amazing. Or great. It was good. It was pretty much OK. Petunia, the stage name of one Ron Fortugna, does and did have a beautiful voice. One of the greatest I have heard in quite some time: from a rumbling baritone, to a delicate yodel. It was really quite stunning. And his band, the aforementioned Vipers, all played exceptionally well. But the whole was unfortunately not the sum of its parts.

Ambling onstage it was an inauspicious start, and unfortunately never completely improved.

There were absolutely stunning highlights; one being when the Vipers left the stage and Petunia to sing the most beguiling dark hilltop ballad that I simply cannot wait to hear again, and a frankly heart-racing I’m Shakin’. But when you, as the band, look tired and a little bored, your audience sees it. When you almost plead with the audience to show some more appreciation and perhaps even dance, and then follow every upbeat, danceable song, with two sloooow songs, the audience will struggle. They rely on you for direction; how much you enjoy it will be directly repaid by how much the audience can enjoy it.

Perhaps the choice of venue hindered the performance. Perhaps, as they reached the end of their tour, P&TV couldn’t fully dismiss the tantalising thoughts of home.

The self titled Petunia and the Vipers album is stunning. I stayed for the entire show simply to hear Petunia sing and I would, hopefully will, go and see them live again, without a second thought. I just hope whatever dark mountain voodoo had followed them to Belfast that night, is shakin loose before they come back again.