Big Top, Stornoway, 16 July 2005

THE FINAL DAY of an already-legendary 10th Hebridean Celtic Festival arrives with a sense of relaxed merriness combined with hedonistic determination, a feeling eminently detectable throughout the audience gathering in the large ex-T in the Park tent for the last of this year’s festivities.

Some people attending the festival unfortunately are unable to stay for the Saturday night due to travel and work and so on, resulting in a slightly thinner crowd on that night.

Not that it is by any means a huge difference in attendance, there is still a profoundly sizeable throng (of at least 4,000 people) swarming expectantly in front of the stage, waiting to be entertained by Shooglenifty and their support, the Mark Saul band.

This means slightly more room for people to dance, which certainly benefits the most enthusiastic members of the audience.

First up is, for me at least, the surprise highlight of this festival: Australian bagpiping sensation Mark Saul with band. Featuring original compositions by Mark Saul, many from his new album ‘Mixolydian’, this was an unusual and spectacular gig. The musicianship of all members – on pipes, flute, guitar, fiddle and drums – is of the highest class, craftily complemented by diverse and well-suited samples.

Successfully merging their various instruments and electronica, each song is received with ecstatic enthusiasm by the soon won-over crowd. Their excellent music aside, this band owes a lot of its charm to their genuine, amiable and humble attitude, a trait that can only endear them even more to their listeners.

So tight and exhilarating is this gig, that to even ponder leaving the tent for a short while, thus potentially missing a song, is unthinkable.

Now continuing their tour of Scotland, I’m confident genial Mark Saul and his band will be getting used to this kind of reception.

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Shooglenifty seem to have something of a cult following, but it’s obvious from the reaction of the crowd that this band appeals to one and all.

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With balloons tumbling from the ceiling, ‘acid croft’ ‘hypnofolkodelica’ musicians Shooglenifty took to the stage. Looking out over the sea of thousands of people waiting to hear them, the group recollected the gig they played at the very first festival in 1996, then to 150 people in the town hall. What an amazing difference, in such a short time.

Shooglenifty’s music defies description, born out of Swamptrash, an Edinburgh psycho-bluegrass quintet from whence many of Shooglenifty’s present members herald, it has blended and fused more influences than you could list to create a sound that sends the audience reeling, jigging and jumping in a joyful frenzy.

The central, and certainly the most eye-catching, figure in the band is stupendous and eccentric fiddler Angus Grant, sporting a massive grey beard and an amicable glimmer in his eyes.

Shooglenifty seem to have something of a cult following, but it’s obvious from the reaction of the crowd that this band appeals to one and all. Towards the end of the gig, there is no end to the cheers and applause from the audience, and there is no way the fans are going to let any of the Shooglenifties go until they have performed a second encore!

The band happily obliges, and it is fitting that the last song the audience is treated to on this amazing tenth anniversary festival is ‘A Whisky Kiss’, a song that was previously played on the first ever HebCeltFest.

And so the festival comes to an end with yet another memorable gig. The tenth anniversary HebCelt festival has been universally acknowledged as the biggest and best yet. The festival now brings in over one and a half million pounds to the local economy, it sports two separate bars and four catering outlets, and besides showcasing the island’s beauty to visitors, it brings together the people of the island and music-lovers from all over the world.

The HebCeltFest is an exemplary music festival, and a source of pride to locals and far-off locals – i.e. visitors who fall in love with both festival and island alike.

© Kevin MacNeil, 2005