The Rock, Dingwall, 23 March 2006

Black Star Ritual.

WHEN ASKED TO venture along to a music gig in Dingwall on the 4th day of my student placement with HI~Arts, I was more than happy to oblige.

It was a gig being run by the Creative Media Centres in and around the Highlands of Scotland. Great, I thought, what a way to spend your working hours with your placement organisation – listening to a few tunes being hammered out by the youth of today, witnessing them doing something they have a passion for. I couldn’t have asked for a better task!

Having witnessed many youngsters sitting in their bedrooms strumming on guitars – I myself was quite a fan of making up my own lyrics and tunes – I was expecting to be seated in a smallish café–bar type venue with a few teenagers sitting around supporting their school friends while they got up on a platform and performed a few cover tracks of songs we all already know and love.

Eh… Not quite. My initial idea of the event could not have been more wrong. From the minute I entered The Rock, a venue I had never been in before, the atmosphere was buzzing. A long, dark, pit-type hall stood in front of me with the bright coloured lights of the stage misted over by the smoke in front of it.

I could hear the tuning of guitars and the testing of microphone pitching in between the babbling, giggling teenagers that had suddenly submerged from the darkness as I wandered nearer the stage. After meeting some of the adults working within the Creative Media Centre Projects, or HUBs as they are otherwise known, I began to realise just how professional this gig was going to be.

With the help of Highlands and Islands Enterprise and Leader+ funding, three HUBs were set up around the Highlands in existing youth café’s and appropriate centres in order to focus on music development in these areas where there was already a recognised amount of musical activity.

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I strongly believe that programmes like the Creative Media Spaces are investments that we should continually make throughout the future

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The HUBs were built to enable young people with musical talent to have access to enhanced practice facilities with a range of professional equipment including vocal PA systems, basic sound and vision recording equipment, computers, editing software, broadband access and practice instruments.

After training on how to use the centres equipment, provided by mentors from the HAIL network, the youngsters are now able to use these facilities to develop demo CDs and videos, rehearse for performances, improve their standards of playing and performing and also learn from the mentors who still regularly drop in on a more casual basis to see the progress of the centres and the artists who use them.

The first band stepped up. The lights dimmed even further and the amps went right the way up as Black Star Ritual, a heavy metal band from Dingwall who are members of the Dingwall Youth Café, took to the stage.

Currently the Dingwall Youth café is not directly involved in the HUBs programmes. However the boys, who are aged between 13-16, make good use of the facilities available in the HUB in neighbouring Alness, otherwise known as The Place – and very good use it seems to be.

Stepping out of the crowd before I was squashed like a nut in a cracker, I watched from the side as the youngsters went mad for the boys in a way that I once knew as ‘moshing’!

Whether that is still what this extreme jumping around and shaking of heads is called, I have no idea, but with a crowd of youths screaming like that for them it certainly seemed to give the young band a great boost as they continued to play an exhilarating set of heavy rock tunes.

The next band on stage were slightly more familiar to my musical tastes. Re-Verb are an Evanton/Alness band that play covers from the likes of Green Day and The Vines. They also use the The Place in Alness to practise, and are aged between 14-17.

One word. Fantastic. What a talent this band have. The lead singer blew me away. Having worked with professional singers in London over the past couple of years there is no doubt in my mind that this band knows what they are doing when it comes to musical techniques.

It was not until I retreated to the bar after this act that I remembered that I was in fact at a gig where all the acts were mainly under the age of 18. (I was reminded of this fact by the tea cloths covering the beer taps and the posters discretely hung over the spirit bottles!)

I settled for a diet coke, hoping the caffeine would re-energize the teenage spirit in me and allow me next time to get right into the middle of that mosh pit!

Fyonn, a fifteen year old girl from Evanton who is also known as Fiona Redwood, was next up. This acoustic solo performance was something not only spectacular but also very special. To sit at that age, as the only solo artist, in front of such a huge and intimidating crowd was something that must have taken a lot of courage.

She not only played songs that she had practised many times – another regular user of The Place – she treated her fans to a new song that she had only written 3 days beforehand. Again, another very talented youngster who is clearly benefiting from the opportunities these HUBs are creating for young people in the Highlands today.

Unfortunately I was unable to stay to see the remaining two acts but I have heard from mentors who remained at the gig that Hope’s Amber, a young band from Alness inspired by the likes of Tool and Trivium, and also the very up and coming young Nairn band High Profile Fish, whose current CD album ‘Pull The Trigger’ , recorded in the Nairn HUB, has received great reviews (most recently in the Inverness Courier of 28 March), both went down an absolute storm with the well turned out crowd of youngsters at The Rock.

One of the most rewarding things about this opportunity that I was given was learning of the opportunities young people now have in the Highlands of Scotland, and seeing the beneficial effects that they are having on the people that are Scotland’s future.

When I was a teenager I was involved in the setting up of a youth café in my own area of Inverness. When I look back now at the old hut that I was so thrilled about going to on a Friday night, I step back and think, at no point would I ever have imagined the facilities available now.

I was always a performer as a child, forever showing off to anyone who would watch, but apart from a few local dance schools and music tutors there were no opportunities for young people to develop their creative skills to a more professional level.

I fell in love with Highland Dancing and took my skills right to the top of Championship level. At the age of 15 I moved away from home to attend the National Dance School based in Knightswood Secondary School in Glasgow and from there progressed to London where I studied and worked in the professional creative industry.

It was during my time there that I realised how unfair it was that in order to follow a dream and use my talent in a professional way I had had to move away from not only a region that inspired my original genre of dance but also a country that I truly loved.

I have a true passion for Scotland and its culture, and I think it is an extremely unique part of the world with the fantastic opportunity of a thriving future. With the benefits that developing local talent brings not only to the local community but also to the Highlands as a region and Scotland as a country, I strongly believe that programmes like the Creative Media Spaces are investments that we should continually make throughout the future.

To say I was not intimidated by the vast number of youths that were set to party in front of me on Thursday night would be a lie – and I’m only 20! But how wrong I was to stereotype the young teenagers and the culture they bring to society today, and to stereotype them in a way the media has taught us all to do so commonly.

It was such an impressive turn out with no trouble to be seen or heard. Everyone was genuinely there to see the bands, hear the music, support their friends and have some fun. What an opportunity. What a showcase of talent. What a learning curve. What a night.

Amy MacLeod is a student at the University of Strathclyde

© Amy MacLeod, 2006