Stornoway, Isle of Lewis, 16-19 July 2008

Stornoway outlook for Festival go-ers (photo - Uisdean Paterson)

A DOZEN years on, is there anything to get excited about? A big blue tent with a certain Roald Dahl series of bizarre pvc pagodas is erected efficiently and dismantled a week later. Big bands with strong drum and bass elements dominate. Heroes return. A not so well known band storms a session and is asked back next year.

So OK, the Heb Celt now has its formula, but it continues because it works. And there are developments. Some are directly linked to the Festival and some are associated.

Both sides of the Minch, visual arts exhibitions are geared to offer something particular to visitors. An Talla Solais in Ullapool, an emerging venue for showing new work from artists from the area, has a strong show by two local graduates. It’s a fine balance – Alasdair Boyce (Duncan of Jordanstone) is an illustrator and Ruth Stockl (Edinburgh College of Art) designs and makes costumes. So both artists have skills and stories at the heart of their work but Stockl has feisty drama.

Over the Minch, Alice Starmore composes a hymn to moorland. Her work has photography at its generation but the textiles and textures tht play with it are the result of many years in design and making. A love of moorland and a love of her mediums and all very appropriate to give Festival visitors a taste of the Minch area’s other arts.

The Hebridean maritime festival takes place over the same period and a growing number of boat-owners combine the sailing and music passions. A growing fleet of local lugsail rigged boats accompanies the visitors and races beside them. So flocks of brown and white sails go by the Festival outlook from time to time. The connection is made explicit through musician-in-residence Norman Chalmers, hired to provoke on-board and on-shsore sessions. And he did, ably abetted by local whistle ace Amanda Darling.

This year’s sailing highlights for me were capsizing Shuggie’s pram and racing Archie’s boat. Uisdean Paterson has built a contemporary version of a Norwegian pram dinghy – nippy and tender and wet and fun. And a very beautiful hull. Archie Tyrrel has been seven years in building a boat that combines his own Grimsay background with the remembered shapes of other boats that work. He was amazed to see that in strong breeze she could compete with any of the other classic designs on the water.

This year An Lanntair truly came into its own as an essential part of the formula. The great Lewis singer Mairi Smith was paired with the younger Uist voice of Julie Fowlis. But the word in the early morning sessions, from those who know – fine singers and students of song – was that simplicity and wit worked its charm.

I caught the Hunger Mountain Boys concert in the same venue. Exuberant arrangements and fine harmonies reminded me of the American duo “Magpie” but with less of the political and more of the good times. Ross Ainslie and Jarlath Henderson and their very strong band proved that the joined forces generated from Uilleann and Border pipes can indeed have a conversation – sometimes subtle but capable of rumbustious mischief.

The stroll out to the tent is across a wooden pedestrian bridge. Stornoway harbour looks a lot better at high water but I happen to know that sea-trout are still running under the revelers. A lot of folk were talking about catching the bands billed for earlier in the evening – like Bodega getting a swift return after hitting it off with the crowd last year. Or The Chair, just to show that a couple of days in and with sleep deprivation making its mark, turbo-charged fiddle and rhythm is still more invigorating than a double shot coffee.

But I decided to miss the more tranquil An Lanntair concert to catch The Saw Doctors – big in Ireland, huge in Stornoway. Well, the apprentice at work rates them, and she’s usually worth listening to. I left a full going kitchen-party, doors open on the harbour, people bringing in fries of hake and prawns and scallops; folk trading trawled ling for line caught mackerel; folk catching up with a cruising couple just back from Faroes – let’s just say no shortage of banter – but could hardly get over the bridge for the fok heading back in town.

Undeterred, I caught the Saw Doctors, giving out their anthems to the faithful. Oh well, time I was in church again. It’s like Runrig or the Proclaimers – there’s pleasure and security in knowing what you are going to get. And these bloody songs really do stay in the head. And these guys do give the survivors their money’s worth.

Seth Lakeman has also had a swift return to the big tent and another guy in the know said to give it a try. I did notice that the girls were staring fixedly in the main man’s direction but, for me, this was a band that worked together, responding to the challenge of the noisy boozy venue. If the masses like you here, they show it. I thought I was going to hear one man and a guitar and sad ballads – but this was a strong band.

So there’s the familiar and the new. There’s the chance to hear the warriors away from the big tent. With the berseker’s shields aside, just playing great sounds in a transformed Arts Centre. An Lanntair without the seats is a completely different venue. Stovies till 2 a.m. and a staff beyond patience – friendly and lively.

So for me, the Festival Club has come into its own as a venue – you could catch bands you missed earlier because choices had to be made. So I experienced the Orcadian dynamism of Salt Fish Forty – augmented by mates to become The Chair again. They sure got the party going but you stopped to listen to the interplay of fiddle and mandolin or voice.

But for me the band that worked the Festival best was no surprise. Shooglenifty had the thousands jumping at the tent but you stopped in your tracks to catch wild and weird interplays. They adapted to the shift of scale to the club and then again to the Royal Hotel bar.

Late into Monday I saw them through the window, still playing. Young friends went back into the scene. I looked around the harbour, noting the visiting yachts prepared to sail in a few hours. I had a kitchen to get back to. Folk might be in.

© Ian Stephen, 2008

Links

• Hebridean Celtic Festival
• Heb Celt 2008 Picture Gallery