The French-Algerian guitar maestro Pierre Bensusan returned to Whelans for the second of two shows on his current tour, and the third one this year.
After too long a drought, we've been treated to some of the most sublime live performances in the past 12 months, with Bensusan proferring passion and dexterity in equal measure.
Since the release of his last solo album, Intuite, earlier this year, Bensusan has re-established himself as a six-string shooter without compare. Somehow he finds space between chords that are privy to nobody else, and his lithe insistence on absolute focus throughout what were at times extended medleys would be the envy of the hardiest of Zen practitioners.
Silent Passenger and Alchemiste shimmered with a lightness of tone and mood that belied their complexity. He had his predominantly male audience eating out of his hand with his trademark Celtic Medley, bookended by an impossibly gorgeous ode to the hangover and Bensusan's own The Last Pint, storing every chord change in the recesses for later imitation (or attempted imitation, perhaps).
Listening to Intuite and Kadourimdou, it was almost impossible to tell where the molecules of Bensusan ended and those of his guitar began. This was a Flann O'Brien moment, with images of The Third Policeman jostling for space alongside Bensusan's surreal between-tune banter.
