Johnsmans Foy/ Flavour Of Shetland

5 Jul 2006 in Festival, Music, Shetland

Lerwick, Shetland, 23-25 June 2006

Roddy Woomble.

FOR ANYONE unacquainted with the Shetland calendar, Johnsmas falls on 24 June, the date when the Dutch fishing fleet traditionally arrived into Lerwick during the 17th century, for the start of the herring season.

(Lerwick, in fact, owes its very existence to herring, having grown out of the shoreside shanty towns erected to trade with the Dutch each summer, before it eventually supplanted Scalloway as Shetland’s capital.)

Johnsmas also coincides with that magical time of year known locally as “simmer [ie summer] dim”, when thanks to the islands’ northerly latitude, the sun sets only briefly below the horizon, so that the nights are never fully dark.

And for anyone unacquainted with the Shetland dialect, “foy” means gala or festival, which is what the local council and tourist authority nowadays lay on for Johnsmas, with a ten-day sailing jamboree plus other events, including Flavour of Shetland, a long-weekend showcase of local music, food and crafts in a mini tented village on Lerwick’s central pier.

Although the modern-day Johnsmas Foy was initiated only last year, it’s a spree firmly rooted in tradition. The Dutch fleet’s annual sojourn was notorious as an occasion for “great abominatioun and wickedness. . . drunkenes and bludshed … also manifold adultrie and fornicatioun with women” – these being the words of Sir John Buchanan, Sheriff Principal of Orkney and Shetland, as he ordered that Lerwick’s fledgling year-round settlement be demolished in 1625.

Although the fiddle still reigns supreme, the home-grown music scene now spans just about every major genre and sub-genre, from traditional to indie-rock, country and western to DJ culture, and is buoyed, across the board, by a remarkable abundance of young talent

Not that there was any bloodshed or fornication to be seen during the family-oriented Flavour of Shetland festivities (though the previous weekend’s Simmer Dim Biker’s Rally may have been a different story), even if some of the wigs on display among Saturday night’s crowd, following the arrival of a hen party, certainly rated as abominatiouns.

Anyone arriving in Shetland unawares on Saturday, in fact, must have formed a somewhat surreal impression of the place. Besides the array of outlandish hairpieces and other bad-taste garb sported by the bridal posse, a sizeable proportion of those enjoying the sounds, seafood and late-night sunshine on the pier were dressed as Vikings, having taken part in a themed parade through the town earlier that day.

Sailing trips on a replica longship, ‘Dim Riv’, gave a further nod to the islands’ ancient Norse heritage, while a hectic programme of nautical events, from extreme kayaking to village regattas, also included the fiercely competitive local pastime of yoal racing, in the six-person clinker-built rowing boats formerly used by Shetland fishermen.

Today, of course, while fish remains a mainstay of its economy, Shetland’s music is an increasingly important player in the market. Although the fiddle still reigns supreme, the home-grown music scene now spans just about every major genre and sub-genre, from traditional to indie-rock, country and western to DJ culture, and is buoyed, across the board, by a remarkable abundance of young talent.

Among its brightest current rising stars is fiddler Jenna Reid, who turned in an effervescent set flanked by her sister Bethany (fiddle, piano) and guitarist Kevin Mackenzie, again revealing the sure-handed balance between fire and delicacy, attack and articulation, that earned her the Best Up and Coming Artist gong at last year’s Scots Trad Music Awards.

Young as Reid is, she’s still a relative veteran alongside 17-year-old singer/pianist Jillian Isbister, who made a couple of appearances over the weekend, leading a tight, dynamic six-piece band. Her marvellously dulcet yet passionate vocals, and sheer joy in performing, were paraded to full advantage in material that ranged from original Shetland dialect songs to old soul and blues classics.

Even Isbister, though, already has still younger pretenders snapping at her heels, notably the Two Pot Screamers, a six-piece blues outfit with an average age of eleven – all offspring of leading local musicians – who delighted Friday afternoon’s audience with their precociously assured performance.

In the traditional camp, too, the order of succession is already apparent in acts like Swingin’ Fiddles, a teenage trio whose twin fiddle/piano arrangements displayed both sparkling technical flair and sophistication beyond their years.

Given those aforementioned Nordic influences on Shetland culture, and the 20th annual Bergen-Shetland yacht race being a centrepiece of the sailing programme, Norwegian sounds also featured prominently among the music.

They included the accomplished acoustic trio Geitengen, fiddler Annlaug Borsheim, and the ad hoc, as-and-when Shetland/Norway collaboration Fullsceilidh (try saying it) Spelemannslag, who closed the opening night’s show with a glorious massed-fiddles rammy, before transferring to Lerwick’s legendary Lounge bar for several hours’ more of the same.

As regards big-name headliners, the festival buzz was equally divided between Idlewild frontman Roddy Woomble, offering an exclusive live foretaste of his debut solo album, ‘My Secret is My Silence’ (released late July) and broadcaster Mark Radcliffe, who presented his weekly Radio 2 show live from Shetland, as well as performing with his band, the Family Mahone.

Both acts, together with Dundee’s the Hazey Janes, featured on a cracking triple-header bill at Lerwick’s North Star nightclub on Friday, although the competing allure of free music and fair weather along at the pier resulted in a sadly thin turnout.

Nonetheless, it was a night to remember, as Woomble’s lyrical yet edgy alt.folk ballads, tellingly accompanied by guitarists Rod Jones and Allan Stewart, plus fiddler John McCusker, gave way to the Janes’ spiky, punchy, sweetly harmonised indie-pop, before Radcliffe and co rousingly rounded things off with a good-humoured set of Pogues-esque drinking songs.

(This was Radcliffe’s first visit to Shetland, incidentally, and he’d arrived hoping to see some whales. He can hardly have imagined, though, that the famed local hospitality would extend to a pod of five orcas arriving one morning in the bay below his hotel bedroom: alerted by a call from reception, he merely had to open his curtains, and there they were.)

It was left to two favourite local acts to play out the festival on Sunday night – and there was barely a fiddle in sight. The vocal-led seven-piece Shoormal performed with characteristic polish and conviction, varying between their trademark soulful balladry, enriched by exquisite three-part harmonies, and forays into old-time swing. Finally, Hook Van Cluny persuaded a good few folk onto the floor for one last boogie, with a winningly feelgood set that mixed up vintage reggae and blues alongside quirky self-penned numbers.