MAYFEST'S general manager Billy Kelly will kill me over this one, but

I'm not convinced that the Beck's Tent was the appropriate venue for the

Gavin Bryars Ensemble. Somewhere that would have brought us closer to

the intimate (though amplified) music of Bryars would have been better;

and somewhere less cavernous to accommodate the several hundred tuned-in

and turned-on souls that attended.

Anyway, to the show. Bryars, despite the cultish aura that has grown

around him, despite the experimental tag sometimes attached, is an out

and out romantic composer. Though the Bryars octet sounded a bit raw in

the tent (not their fault -- they contended with everything from a

lyrical avian intruder to booming air-conditioning) what proceeded from

the five numbers they played was an evening of mostly slow, warm,

attractive music, leisurely sculpted over arches of time, and performed

with great beauty.

The dreamy, languid sounds of Allegrasco were followed by the

fascinating Man Gambling in a Room -- a quartet selected from a larger

piece which is accompanimental music to a series of lectures on how to

cheat at cards. The Old Tower, beginning darkly, rose to a glorious

climax that featured the brilliant, impassioned viola playing of Bill

Hawkes (a familiar face in Scotland).

Sub Rosa (based on a Bill Frisell improvisation) was stately and

luminous; but the best (of course) came last in a hypnotic and touching

half-hour version of Jesus' Blood Never Failed Me Yet, in which a taped

Tom Waits made a surprise guest appearance in the coda. Lovely night.