PETER URPETH brings us the lowdown on the packed programme of the 2003 Hebridean Celtic Festival.

Those hoping to see The Waterboys perform a power-packed stadium rock gig at this year’s Hebridean Celtic Festival (16-20 July), are in for something of a surprise. For the days when Mike Scott and friends gave us such drum-thumping rock anthems as ‘The Whole of the Moon’ are over, confined to their 80s ghetto. Now, The Waterboys are deeper, more soulful and certainly more ‘Celtic’ than ever before, as testified to by the success of their albums, including ‘Fisherman’s Blues’, ‘Room To Roam’, ‘Dream Harder’ and, most recently, ‘Universal Hall’.

Between the days when a mullet was something you wore rather than something you eat, the nomadic urge has taken the chameleon-like Scott from Edinburgh’s alt-rock scene to spells living in the calm waters of the Findhorn Community and on the West Coast of Ireland, and his music, while retaining the distinctive Waterboys sound, has gathered the array of influences offered by immersion in those very different environments, to make music he describes as being “part minimal, part full-ensemble and wholly unclassifiable.”

It is no exaggeration to say that gigs such as The Heb Celtic Festival are now the ideal venues for The Waterboys and their new music, providing for a meeting-of-minds between band and audience that is simply not available in the barn-like caverns of rock stadia.

Mike Scott is certainly shrewd enough to follow his musical instincts and hats-off to the Heb Celtic Festival for being shrewd enough to spot a headline act that fits the festival like a glove, and which should provide for one of their best sets to date. And that’s saying something.

On the other side of the Heb Celtic spectrum is this year’s commission ‘Gluaiseachd a’Chuain Siar: Atlantic Movement’, which draws together some of the finest female talent from around the international Celtic scene, including Mary Jane Lamond, acclaimed singer from Cape Breton; top Gaelic artists Màiri Smith, Alyth McCormack and Julie Fowlis; Maighréad and Tríona Ní Dhómhnaill from one of Donegal’s finest singing families and Julie Murphy, singer from leading Welsh folk group Fernhill.

This flagship project will be working under the inspired musical direction of composer, performer and teacher Andy Thorburn, one of Scotland’s busiest musicians, and supporting the singers will be instrumentalists, guitarist Dylan Fowler and fiddler Aiden O’Rourke.

Perhaps borrowing a title from Kenneth White’s epic poem ‘The Atlantic Movement’, such a loan would not be entirely inappropriate for White’s 1985 masterpiece is a celebration of the Atlantic poet-mariners, whether they be priests or whalers, who carried their poetics from Western port to Western port, from Inuit Labrador to the Bay of Biscay, from Brandan to Melville, and the cross-Atlantic cast for this commission will certainly provide for an exploration of the unifying strands of our musical traditions that unite us across that big water.

To pick one name from the cast of talents that will be performing this commission is perhaps a little unfair, but any chance to hear Màiri Smith must be taken. Màiri’s distinctive tone and soul-touching expressive range are close to the essence of traditional song on Lewis.

The Hebridean Celtic Festival takes place in venues throughout the Western Isles of Scotland between 16th and 20th July 2003. © Peter Urpeth, 2003

Related Links

• Hebridean Celtic Festival
• Mike Scott & The Waterboys website