McClellan’s return to the Trinity Sessions was a history lesson from a truly great Australian songwriter.

This performance marked the first time McClellan had performed in public for 2 years, the result, of course, of covid.  He was obviously delighted to be back, especially in the wonderful venue that is Trinity, so much so that he went over the scheduled 1hr 50 mins by 40 minutes! No one was complaining.

This was, as referred to above, a history lesson given by former teacher McClellan, about his career, from his earliest days in the folk clubs to the present via dealings with record companies, working in advertising and finally returning to his first love, writing and performing.

McClellan interspersed his songs with sometimes fairly lengthy background introductions, but always interesting and heartfelt. Along the way he performed songs by others Tom Rush (No Regrets), Jerry Jeff Walker (Mr Bojangles), some bluegrass via Doc Watson (Deep River Blues) and of course a plentiful bounty of his own songs. All of his best known songs received an airing and all enthusiastically received.

McClellan possesses a voice that can make almost any song sound good and when combined with a very accomplished finger style guitar he becomes a very powerful and emotive performer. No doubt the absence from the stage brought even more focus to this performance.

As far as this reviewer is concerned, McClellan can come back as many times as he likes, I’ll be there!