Ok, I’m holding my hands up here. I’d never heard of Winter Mountain until today. Maybe I’m not as young or cool as I like to think. Maybe the fact I still use the word cool proves this point. I digress. The fact is, today I discovered a new band and maybe after reading this you will too.
This is not to say that Winter Mountain aren’t well known. They tour regularly with the likes of Seth Lakeman and tonight they’re fresh off the stage from a support slot with Leann Rimes and tonight I’m fortunate enough to be amongst the forty or fifty souls witnessing their debut Belfast headlining show at the Real Music Club. I’ve got a seat down front, a pint of Guinness and Martin and Joe of Winter Mountain are on stage introducing the newest member of their band; a shiny new guitar named Belle.
Photo by Gerry McNally
Starting off with a mix of old and newer material including the beautiful ‘Sweet River’ and a soulful, slow burning ‘When You Lay Your Head Down’, comparisons to Don and Phil Everley are inevitable. The harmonies have been perfected over countless days on the road and in the studio since the two met by chance on a train bound for Memphis. The guitar strums in major keys. It’s an upbeat country feel with this minimal accompaniment and then out of the blue we’re talking major events in minor keys. ‘January Stars’ tells the tale of best friends lost to tragic surfing accidents and is one of the most beautiful standalone moments of music we’ve heard in quite some time.
There’s romance in the air for the remainder of the set as we hear how a couple enjoyed ‘Stronger When You Hold Me’ as their first dance wedding song before we’re engulfed in the George Harrison guitar licks and Art Garfunkel vocals of ‘Burning Up With Love’. It’s all wholly charming from the crash and burn of misplaced Busta Rhymes references to Martin’s call to arms to be ‘soldiers on the front line of the war against Simon Cowell’. We’re joining this battalion. Records in hand. Boots on. Scaling the height of this Winter Mountain.