IT was like a dream come true when the Sage announced it had combined with Glasgow’s Celtic Connections to have the Transatlantic Sessions play outside Glasgow for the first time.

It read like a who’s who in the world of Celtic and Americana roots when the musicians took to the stage.

The first half of the sold-out show was slow in comparison to the second, when the ensemble moved up the gears like nobody’s business, but the musicians were still faultless.

When you have the likes of the world’s number one Dobro player Jerry Douglas, Ally Bain and Tim O’Brien centre stage, you aren’t going to hear any cries of disenchantment. Just the opposite.

With a host of five-star efforts from which to choose, I cite those by guitarist Russ Barenberg’s Drummer’s Of England, Dan Tyminski, Darrell Scott (Banjo Joe Clark), fiddleplaying vocalist Sara Watkins and Scots gals Eddi Reader and Karen Matheson as being extra special.

For an encore who better could you have than O’Brien front Bob Dylan’s Lay Down Your Weary Tune, performed with conviction and style the ensemble fell in line to give him fabulous support.

The amount of great musicianship was inexhaustible, as Michael McGoldrick, Danny Thompson, John Doyle, Bruce Molsky, Donald Shaw, Phil Cunningham plus the above were all superb.

Douglas’s playing was extraordinary, the likes of which many had never experienced before – plus, he also extracted the best out of everyone else on stage.

What a great night.

Maurice Hope