Various venues, Shetland, 30 April-3 May 2009

Julie Moncrieff

YOU KNOW that it’s folk festival time when on making your way home to Shetland you encounter fiddle players on the train from Edinburgh and large instrument-shaped bags at the check-in queue in Aberdeen airport.

So it was that I was back from an Easter trip just in time to for some springtime blue skies, the end of the daffodils and the 29th Shetland Folk Festival. Traditionally, most visiting acts arrive in Lerwick by sea. A wonderful assortment of unkent faces tumble off the boat with a host of instruments in tow.

They are already well initiated into Shetland hospitality by the Folk Festival committee members who leave Lerwick on Tuesday to travel overnight by boat to welcome the visitors in Aberdeen. The committee then travel up with them on the Wednesday night, arriving back on Thursday morning, the first day of the festival.

An afternoon trip to the Festival Club, hosted at Islesburgh Community Centre in Lerwick, for the opening concert reveals a general stir of excitement. There can be heard exotic languages and mysterious accents from Australian twangs to Scandinavian lilts.

Artistes have met their hosts (a special part of this festival being that the visiting acts are put up by local residents), wrist bands have been issued, introductions made and the first sips of brews from the Real Ale Bar have been imbued. The atmosphere is jolly and there is more than a sniff of anticipation in the air.

By Thursday evening everyone has settled in and concerts are in full swing across Shetland. They take place in various venues in Lerwick and in community halls from the south to the north and from the east to the west of the islands.

This year’s international acts came from many lands, including Denmark, Spain, Canada, Ireland, Finland and Australia. And, of course, there is a bulging bag of local artistes. All come together for seamless days and nights of music and just to “hae a spree”, as is said in Shetland.

One of this year’s headline acts were the ever popular Edinburgh ‘Acid Croft’ combo Shooglenifty who played on the Friday night in Lerwick’s Clickimin Leisure Centre. They were supported by Shetland’s Fullscelilidh Spelemannslag.

The local act was on first. Six fiddle players took centre stage to belt out some stonking tunes on their singing, swinging strings. The fiddles rang out against a crisp, rhythmic backbone of drums and hearty bass. All this accompanied by feverish mandolin, pacey guitar and earthy bodhran, creating a full-scale frenzy.

Sitting in the hall you could feel the tension of hundreds of toe-tapping revellers itching to boogie. A few tunes later and the dance floor head count went from nought to sixty in as many seconds. Soon it was packed and a sudden throbbing heat had filled the room.

There ensued a hurly, burly maelstrom of musical mischief with influences that seem to swoop in from Cape Breton, Eastern Europe and Ireland. Then in a final flash of bows, a sparkle of bouncing strings and to the clap of hundreds of hands they were gone.

With the audience well and truly warmed up Shooglenifty hit the stage. Angus Grant, the slinky-hipped fiddle player and front man, greeted the hall to hearty applause. This was much anticipated return to Shetland.

Throughout the set Grant prowled up and down the stage with devilish presence, snake-charming the audience with hearty reels and searing, soaring playing.

Quee McArthur’s bass lines mixed with James Mackintosh’s neat and meaty drums to provide a low end that hinted at everything from rock’n’roll to funk. But, however a piece began the band’s sound always meshed together into a distinctly Celtic twang as soon as the various melodic strings kicked in.

Mandolin player, Luke Plumb, performed with skill and control, appearing from a distance like a hatless Jay Kay wearing a Nick Cave frown. He cut a striking figure as he surveyed the audience in his fine, cream bell-bottomed suit.

It was a well-polished performance but there with a sense of tease, of something being held back, and perhaps that was the case. Several hours later Shooglenifty delivered a whirling dervish of a set in the less formal setting of the Festival Club.

The festival committee somehow have to create a programme that suits traditionalists and those with a wider sense of ‘folk’ alike, and each year has a different feel and balance.

But, there are some old festival favourites and this year saw the return of members of Old Rope String Band in their new incarnation as New Rope String Band. They were back in Shetland with a new line up after the untimely loss of Old Rope member, Joe Scurfield.

And, of course, the old and the new couldn’t fail to delight. They reduced several audiences to tears of laughter with their infectious brand of highly visual, theatrical playfulness and beautiful music. Tunes, laughter, nonsense and mischief all wrapped up in one act. Imaginative and a bit bonkers, marvellous!

Felpeyu have roots in the Asturia, Spain. They had the stage bulging at the seams with a splendid ensemble of instruments from flute and bodhran to bouzouki and Asturian bagpipes. It was their first time in Shetland but fine cultural links had already been forged.

Shetland’s puffins or Tammie Nories make their winter homes in the south of the Bay of Biscay we were told. Through ornithology and music, then, the act endeared themselves to the local and visiting audience alike. Their set fused earthy lyrics and hot, traditional Spanish beats with the occasional, exotic sniff of North Africa.

Dáimh, trailed as ‘the ultimate Scotland, Irish, Cape Breton, Californian band’ put on an energetic show stuffed with jigs and reels that was sharp, varied and rooted in several lands. This was traditional folk music at its boldest and best.

Toronto’s Madison Violet, were delightful and enchanting. Brenley MacEachern has an extraordinary, rich, crackly voice that shifts effortlessly into song. She can also somehow drop the rasp and deliver pure, angelic notes.

When combined with Lisa MacIsaac’s melodic, rootsy tones the duo create some enchanting harmonies and a most seductive performance. A fine dose of bluegrassy-folk set on a solid bed of good old fashioned singer-songwriting.

Of course there was much, much more. Here’s just a hint in a nutshell: Box Club somehow brilliantly pull-off the concept of ‘experimental accordion playing’, Hat Fitz brought his own brand of powerful, big-bearded blues all the way from Australia, Finland’s Frigg were super-lively and highly-infectious and there were luscious spoonfuls of singing throughout, ranging from Ireland’s Cara Dillon to Scotland’s Emily Sharp.

Local talent was well represented too. There was a special Shetland concert and regular late night slots at the Festival Club. The concert showcased a mix of the islands’ current crop of performers.

Lise Sinclair from Fair Isle combines singing with poetry, often setting Shetland poets’ words to song. Her extraordinary voice echoes back through time and generations. She weaves lyrics around legends and the land but also sings of things contemporary; of the wilderness she finds in the city or of war and loss in world conflict.

Aestaewast are Shetland’s Cuban/African drumming group and enthusiastically demonstrate Shetland’s wide cultural girth. Playful and confident, there were djembes, bongos and even African thumb pianos played inside gourds.

This was an ingeniously choreographed rhythmical frenzy. Their set culminated in a thumping dance-based crescendo that had the room bouncing along with a sea of red hot faces and irrepressible smiles.

Local singer Julie Moncrieff debuted as a front-woman and delivered some velvety, elegant country/rock/folk covers and traditional Shetland songs. Her band, formed of some of Shetland’s finest players, graced the stage in stylish garb. They seemed like inhabitants of some other-worldly jazz club. It was a strong, sensual first outing from a singer and band developing a unique sound.

The Festival Club hosts afternoon workshops and late night acts. There can be found special sessions by day and anything from fiddles and funk to locally distilled rock and downright dirty blues by night.

Huddles of musicians gather on the stairs and indeed any available space to conjure up tunes into the early hours. I would be truly surprised if a single moment could be found during the festival where there isn’t something being played somewhere by someone.

Visitors abounded this year. A group from London were surprised to find that good old fashioned hospitality still abounds in these parts. They were delighted to be offered a dram or two by a particularly cordial host at one of the informal parties that start only after the Festival Club closes. Any self-consciousness evaporated and they were soon enthusiastic participants in the impromptu musical hi-jinx that ensued.

The Shetland Folk Festival Committee (all volunteers), with a fine dollop of help from the local community, manage to bring together the formal with the informal, the traditional with the experimental and the ethereal with the deeply dastardly.

This year’s festival proves that Shetland continues to host what must surely be one of the hottest, most talent-stuffed and, at times, rockin’ folk festivals around.

Thanks to Dave Hammond for the pictures – see Associated Page link below.

© Karen Emslie, 2009

Links

• Shetland Folk Festival
• Dave Hammond

Associated Page

• Dave Hammond’s Shetland Folk Festival Gallery