Rod MacKenzie is a veteran of the Bermuda music scene -- and his return for a one-off concert at the weekend entertained old fans and won him some new ones.

His original folk roots have had elements of a US influence grafted on -- but he has lived in New Hampshire for years.

But he and American bassist Shaun Duncan's mix of rock, folk -- both traditional and folk rock -- appeared to go down well with the very healthy number of people in the audience at the Old Colony Club.

And MacKenzie -- an Englishman from the north, but with Scottish roots -- nearly brought the house down with MacKenzie is My Name, a deeply touching, and clearly deeply felt, anthem to family and father, which also featured some fine harmonica work.

Another old favourite was Guisborough Road (Graham Miles) and something of a signature tune as MacKenzie originally hails from Guisborough.

But MacKenzie and Duncan, in line with the style they have adopted in the US, also managed to fit in US and Canadian folk songs -- and even a touch of Eric Clapton.

And they ended with the classic Scots Wild Mountain Thyme -- a haunting wee song given a new lease of life by Scottish rock band The Silencers which even popped up on TV adverts for the Scottish Tourist Board.

Earlier, Jimmy Kemp played a short set before the main act which gave a folk twist to entirely modern, urban concerns like teenage drug abuse.

And he ended his five-song performance with Dougie McLean's Caledonia -- every expat Scot's hymn to home -- which also got Frankie Miller into the adverts, for Tennant's Lager, I think and from there straight into the charts.

And -- in an interesting clash of cultures -- it spawned a host of wee lassies christened Caledonia in the US among Americans who thought the Caledonia Miller was missing so much he had to be a woman.

But I must take issue with Kemp's disapproval of Flower of Scotland as Scotland's unofficial national anthem -- on the grounds it's about whacking the English -- mawkish and maudlin though it undoubtedly is.

The notorious fourth -- or maybe fifth verse -- of God Save the Queen/King (delete where applicable) contains a line about invoking the aid of the Almighty "rebellious Scots to crush.'' Not very neighbourly.

And anyway, songs about hammering the English are a Celtic tradition -- the Welsh unofficial national anthem, Men of Harlech, is about, um, beating up the Anglos.

And the Republic of Ireland's The Soldier's Song is -- although usually sung in Gaelic, so I'm not entirely sure what it's about -- is unlikely to be an anthem of peace, love and international harmony.

But that aside, it was another fine evening from the consistently under-rated Folk Club.

Raymond Hainey Happy return: Rod Mackenzie was back at Bermuda Folk Club on Saturday