Fort Augustus Abbey, 4 August 2007

Shooglenifty at the inaugural NessFest.

IF YOU were designing the ideal music venue, a Big Top would be fairly low on the list. The sound leaks through the roof and the walls, and the sightlines are a nightmare.

The cheerful red and white striped pavilion pitched in the picturesque grounds of Fort Augustus Abbey looked perfect, and it turned out to be a good thing that Feis Gleann Albainn had not bothered with any interior furnishings a la Spiegeltent, as plenty of space was needed for enthusiastic whirling and birling once Shooglenifty got into their stride.

As for sightlines – who needs them? Even when all the lights failed for a few minutes, the band didn’t miss a beat and neither did the audience.

Earlier in the day, the streets of Fort Augustus had seen a grand total of 17 magicians competing with each other in a scene straight out of Harry Potter and as far as you can possibly imagine from the way most of us experience magic – usually on the telly.

This was the innovative, very colourful Magic Challenge. To see magic performed right under your eyes in the open air with no possibility of hidden wires or other cheats takes the breath away. The worthy winners were the Edinburgh Magic Circle who will hopefully return next year to fight off pretenders to their new crown.

Musically, proceedings kicked off with four young bands; the Fèis Gleann Albainn Band, Cairngorm Ceilidh Trail, Lochaber Ceilidh Trail and The Caledonian Canal Ceilidh Trail. It is remarkable that year-on-year the standard achieved by these young musicians manages to improve. As long performers of this calibre are coming along, we need have no fears for the future of music in Scotland.

The afternoon session was brought to a triumphant close by the fabulous Sirens, in their next to last concert under that name. The Sirens will henceforward be known as “The Shee” – but will continue to be fabulous.

I saw them in March on their first tour; four months later, they have already undergone their first personnel change and a fellow graduate from Newcastle’s very fine music course, Amy Thatcher (who also plays in Waxwing with Drumnadrochit’s Chris Meredith), makes a very competent replacement for Shona Kipling on accordion.

Their introductions were much more confident than before, and were beginning to approach their music in professionalism. Sirens or Shee, these girls are a force to be reckoned with.

The evening’s show began with Lau. The power trio seemed rather less comfortable than they had done the previous week in InvernessFest’s Spiegeltent .and it soon became apparent that gremlins had invaded the foldback monitors, the essential speakers which let the performer hear what the audience is hearing.

Disconcerting enough, but Aidan O’Rourke also mentioned that Lau had travelled back from a festival in Sweden that day, having had to rise at 5am. He didn’t mention it, but one presumes this followed a late-ish night. The sound system was set up for the headliners, and so was the audience, who were chattering loudly at the back.

Despite all this, and being suffused in occasional clouds of smoke as Shooglenifty’s technicians tested their equipment, all praise to O’Rourke, Martin Green and Kris Drever for producing consistently high quality, high energy music.

The tracklist of “Lightweights and Gentlemen”, their must-have first CD, was rolled out, including “The Jigs”, “Twa Stewarts”, “Moorhens”, “Butcher Boy” and Kris’s tune inspired by the alleged sight of an enormous dog-kicking rabbit. By the end of their set, the freeform extravaganza that “Gallowhill” has become had suddenly, magically ignited the audience and Lau left the stage to resounding cheers.

There was a pause for refreshment during which your fashion correspondent noted that many members of the audience wore stetsons and wondered if they are needed west of Fort Augustus to ward off rain and midges; however the sight of one tall, burly lad with a fetching pink feather-edged version (as usually worn by hen parties), indicated that perhaps this was a sartorial nod to Shooglenifty mandolinist Luke Plumb’s headgear of choice.

From the first notes of “Scraping the Barrel”, Shooglenifty had everyone from primary – or possibly pre-primary – children to pensioners tapping a foot at least, and most were dancing, skipping, waving and leaping. Many were festooned with glowsticks twisted in artistic patterns while others were whirling them around like seasoned glowstringers – and that was just the bairns.

Three of the soon-to-be Shee – Rachel, Amy and Laura – had left their handbags backstage and were dancing like dervishes. Mothers danced with sons, fathers danced with daughters, friends and strangers danced with each other, or on their own.

Without pausing for anything but the briefest of introductions, the set swung smoothly through the Shoogles’ now extensive repertoire, from “A Whisky Kiss” to this year’s new release, “Troots”, which was of course well represented. “The Patient Nurses” followed “Scraping” and after a brief diversion to “The Nordal Rumba” we were treated to the title track.

More Troots tracks included “Excess Baggage”, a subject guaranteed to provoke an intense discussion with any band who flies with their instruments, “Charlie and the Professor”, “The Trim Controller” and “McConnell’s Rant” which turns out to be named for Dannsa’s Frank of that ilk.

Shooglenifty are a musical expression of that untranslatable phrase ‘the craic’, deftly weaving in tuneful strands of anything from Balkan to deep, deep dub as the mood takes them. Their tunes grow and develop like living things.

Time and touring have changed tracks like the initially trance-y “Delighted” (from Solar Shears) into something denser, harder, richer and stronger. After a storming attack on “She’s in the Attic” (A Whisky Kiss) the band left the stage but with one voice, the audience demanded “One More Tune” until they returned.

Angus Grant held up three fingers. “Three more tunes”, he said, and had there been rafters in the Big Top, they would have been raised. Even that wasn’t enough, and a second encore was required (“Schuman’s Leap” and “Glenuig Hall”) before the audience would finally consent to leave.

Grabbing the good and the tuneful from anywhere and everywhere, blending it with a Highland heart and a Scottish soul – this is Highland culture, the wild, wonderful living thing that Highland 2007 is supposed to be celebrating.

© Jennie MacFie, 2007

Links

• Fèis Gleann Albainn