Stornoway, Saturday 19 July 2003

After the hedonistic heights scaled during the previous three nights, Saturday night had a lot to live up to with expectations and standards raised. This year a mind-bogglingly vast crowd had packed themselves into the tent to sample the delights on the Hebridean Celtic Festival menu.

Salsa Celtica at Heb Celt 2003

An evening of serious rush-of-blood-to-the-head, down-the-front experience was served by the wonderful headline act Salsa Celtica who delighted the crowd and whipped up a wild chorus of approval. They stepped into the notoriously tricky spot of Saturday night headliners with apparent ease, serving up their Latin-Celtic delights with a robust attitude essential for the survival of a crowd who had been enthralled with three straight days of Hebridean quality and had enjoyed a supreme set by The Waterboys the previous evening.

Salsa Celtica executed a magical prime set delivering one of those occasions where a band can rise above their station and deliver nectar to the ear of every one in attendance. The evening had begun well with the thrash Celtic outfit The Finlay Macdonald Band who opened to rousing applause and delivered their unique brand of Celtic sounds with a twist of rock.

The young, Scottish five-piece cranked up the excitement levels early into their set with some harmonic melodies teamed with bagpipe brimming with Celtic traditions. The crowd were more than happy to stomp away merrily in beat with them.

At the epicentre of the Hebridean experience lay the solitary grumble, namely the queues which stemmed from the beer tents and the toilets. The stalls were badly located, and with a sea of bodies encasing the porta-loos, desperate action had to be taken. I was not alone in gloriously relieving myself against a tree before retreating into the canvas heaven.

By the end of the evening as I walked into the town, conversation was fractured to say the least as myself and most of my festival veterans had forgotten where or what sleep was but one thing we were left in no doubt was that we had been part of a musical masterpiece where for once the weather had matched the performers.

© An Sgadan Robach, 2003