WITH ticket sales up by 7% on last year, and merchandise by a whacking 38%, the 17th Hebridean Celtic Festival was rated by many regulars as one of the best yet, bucking the recessionary trend not only in financial terms, but with a significant expansion of its programme.

WHERE previously the main-arena concerts took place only in the evenings, this time the music also ran throughout Friday and Saturday afternoon, building further on 2011’s addition of a smaller second stage to the original giant marquee in Lews Castle grounds. Total attendance was slightly over the 15,000 mark, roughly half from the Western Isles themselves, plus visitors from 19 different countries – at a conservative estimate, Stornoway’s population must have at least doubled over the four days.

The Proclaimers (photo Leila Angus)

The largely dry weather, too, was in marked contrast to other festivals’ mud-swamped fate this summer, with plentiful sunshine on Saturday encouraging the crowd to take their ease on the grass between bands, many quaffing from pitchers of Pimms – who must have seen a major spike in their Highland sales figures over the weekend – while kids dressed as pirates (that being the day’s designated theme) ran merrily around.

It’s not that the Heb Celt didn’t already feel like a fully-fledged festival – it was, after all, on the strength of its 15th outing in 2010 that it won Best Large Festival at last year’s Scottish Events Awards, beating both Celtic Connections and Edinburgh’s Hogmanay to the title. Nonetheless, the choice of stages and all-day programming – together with the indoor concerts and late-night Festival Club at An Lanntair, the village-hall shows outside Stornoway, the street entertainment around town and a fast-growing array of independent fringe events – added a substantial extra dimension, putting it even more firmly on a par with other top gatherings in its field, from Cambridge to Tönder.

This heavyweight clout was once again reflected in the Heb Celt’s choice of headliners, including both those who’ve gained mainstream media exposure – The Proclaimers, The Waterboys, Kassidy, Admiral Fallow – and such leading Celtic/folk names as Mànran, Heidi Talbot, Beoga and Skerryvore. Mànran’s presence, though, along with Mod Gold Medallist Isobel Ann Martin, Brave soundtrack star Julie Fowlis (performing her multi-media Heisgeir show), young Skye piper Angus Nicolson’s trio and the even younger three-piece Muran, who won their slot in a open pre-festival competition, simultaneously reaffirmed one of the Heb Celt’s unique founding signatures, its commitment to and celebration of the local Gaelic culture, in both traditional and modern guise.

The show must go on - Sketch arrive by RIB (photo Leila Angus)

Sketch, the new line-up led by ex-Peatbog Faeries drummer Iain Copeland, fall emphatically into the latter camp, splicing fiddle/pipes-led tunes and Maeve MacKinnon’s Gaelic vocals with live electronic beats and programmed soundscapes – and if the main buzz about them over the weekend wasn’t to do with their music, this was no reflection on the exhilarating calibre of their closing Stage 2 set on Saturday night: quite the opposite, as it turned out.

After word came through on Friday that the band were stuck in Canada, following visa glitches en route back from gigs in Winnipeg and Vancouver, further flight delays saw them arriving in Glasgow too late to make the Stornoway ferry from Ullapool, and ultimately having to cross the Minch in an open rigid inflatable. This epic two-and-a-half hour journey, complete with stiff breeze and lively swell, is already inscribed in the Heb Celt annals of heroism, along with their straight-from-boat-to-stage performance, still drenched and frozen as they were.

Most of the new six-piece band led by firebrand Scottish/Irish pipers Ross Ainslie and Jarlath Henderson, by contrast, had chilled out ahead of their main-stage gig on Saturday with a couple of days’ fishing over in Uig – and thus were in ideally fresh fettle to unleash a veritable firestorm of thrilling instrumental virtuosity, with the frontmen’s intrepid duelling expanded three ways by fiddler Adam Sutherland’s brilliantly adventurous agility, their densely-layered panoply of tunes taking flight from powerful, precision-honed rhythm work, courtesy of guitarist Ali Hutton, bassist Duncan Lyall and drummer Fraser Stone. Created almost by accident after a Festival Club encounter between the pipers’ respective trios at Celtic Connections in January, this is a band set to take the scene by storm.

The Waterboys (photo Leila Angus)

Friday’s main-stage double whammy of Admiral Fallow followed by The Proclaimers proved a tremendously winning combination to round off the night, with the former Glasgow indie-folk outfit – having warmed up with a pub gig in Ullapool the previous gig – demonstrating exactly why they continue on such an accelerating roll, following the release of their second album, Tree Bursts in Snow. From minimal acoustic balladry to grand-scale power pop, heartlifting singalong hooks to obliquely barbed lyrics, they encompassed a boldly diverse spectrum of new material, older favourites and unrecorded gems, complementing Louis Abbott and Sarah Hayes’s piquantly blended vocals with arrestingly distinctive instrumentation, including flute, clarinet, accordion and vibraphone.

Unlike Abbott, and despite receiving their full due of the Heb Celt’s famously warm reception, the Reid brothers weren’t in much of a mood to chat, but otherwise gave their all unstintingly throughout a 90-minute set, highlighting both the classic catchiness of their best material and the intricately twinned vocal prowess that underpins it, reinforced by an exuberantly tight and punchy band.

Kassidy, making their Heb Celt debut at the top of Thursday’s bill, may have been a lesser-known quantity in a folk-based context, but by the end of the night had won hordes of new fans – and been bowled over themselves by the atmosphere – after showcasing the impishly unpredictable yet richly musical variety of styles they’ve evolved from their original four-guitars/four-vocals format. Excitement over The Waterboys’ appearance may have derived more from past glories than present quality, with the big hits rarely approaching the magic of yesteryear, and their recent Yeats-based material receiving a relatively polite response, while ending their main set, excluding encore, after barely an hour seemed decidedly stingy by Heb Celt standards – but by this point on Saturday night, nothing was going to mute the crowd’s enthusiasm.

Among the newer names mixed throughout this year’s programme, highlights included the aforementioned Angus Nicolson Trio, cooking up an impressively big, diverse and original sound for such a compact line-up, and the frighteningly talented young Canadian brother/sister duo of Qristina and Quinn Bachand – she’s 21, he’s just 16 – reminiscent of a young Liz Carroll and John Doyle on fiddle and guitar, and a young Cathy Jordan on vocals.

Edinburgh singer-songwriter Adam Holmes, with his band the Embers, potently affirmed his one-to-watch status, combining huskily melancholic vocals with heart-on-sleeve lyrical economy, while back on the main stage US sibling-led combo Larkin Poe – formerly the Lovell Sisters – delivered an exhilarating, stormy display of bare-knuckle blues-rock. All in all, thanks to a cannily adroit balance of continuity and innovation, there’s no disputing that the Heb Celt’s onward and upward progress continues – and if it can do so during current straitened times, the years to come look bright indeed.

© Sue Wilson, 2012

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THE Glasgow-based six-piece are earning a growing reputation and have picked up some influential supporters in the likes of Elbow’s Guy Garvey and Guillemots’ Fyfe Dangerfield.

THE BAND, formed in 2006, have also notched up some successful festival gigs, including Glastonbury, and this summer will make their debut at the award-winning Hebridean Celtic Festival which runs from 11-14 July and based in Stornoway in the Isle of Lewis, with further dates in the north to follow.

Admiral Fallow are bound for Lewis and beyond this summer

Louis Abbott, the group’s frontman, said: “It’s been a slow but steady progression for us. We’ve always enjoyed playing together no matter how big the show or where it is geographically. In fact, often the smaller shows leave us more satisfied that people have had a good time watching it.

“That said, to be invited to play some slots on bigger stages at festivals is exciting for us. Last year’s run of festivals included great shows at Glastonbury and Green Man (in Wales) among others. It can be very daunting but there’s no better feeling when you come out the other side in one piece.”

The band are still playing small venues, particularly in England, on their current tour, but see it all as part of the learning experience: “The early stages in any band’s career is a time to learn from your mistakes, something we continue to do with every gig”, says Louis.

“But I have to say that apart from a few individuals at the odd gig we’ve always seemed to go down quite well with crowds even when they haven’t necessarily come to see us. The one exception was when we opened for a band over two nights at their request. The majority of their crowd, it seemed, would’ve happily taken us out the back and had us put down. We bravely soldiered on but we were fighting a losing battle.”

These occasions are rare and Admiral Fallow are now more used to plaudits: “I reckon success is measured by how you feel when you find out there has been a development with the band. Like being asked to open for a band or artist you admire, or being played by someone on the radio whose show you listen to a lot”, Louis said.

“We’ve been lucky enough to have had some spot plays on BBC6 Music which often comes along when the DJ wants to play you as opposed to being told to. Mark Radcliffe gave us a wee shout out on the Glastonbury highlights programme last year. Little things like that mean a lot.”

He said the use of social media nowadays can help a band to get recognised, but there is still the need for gigging, word of mouth and hard work.

“You can be tweeted about the world over and make a name for yourself before you’ve even made an album, but if the product is poor or you can’t play it well live you’ll disappear and be forgotten about awfully quickly.

“At the same time, it’s important for bands that want to be known outside their hometown to use these kinds of networks to do so. Not everyone embraces the likes of twitter – King Creosote, one of my favourite artists, doesn’t use it and gets by just fine.

“But there’s nothing like a whole bunch of shows back to back to get to the stage where playing together becomes second nature. If every show is as good as it can be people will appreciate it and hopefully tell someone about it.”

The band’s debut album, Boots Met My Face, released in 2010 was hailed by the critics and the follow up, Tree Bursts in Snow, is released on 21 May.

Louis says the process was more intense and fraught than the first album, but ultimately more rewarding.

“Because the songs on ‘Boots..’ were already gig ready, recording them was fairly straightforward. This time the songs were quite fragmented and the majority of them hadn’t been road tested.

“This album is a little more direct and, I’m told, more mature sounding as a whole. Like with the first album, however, there is a decent balance in styles. There’s perhaps a curveball or two on there but I don’t want to give much away.

“We’re currently on tour and we’re playing a good bunch of the songs from the second record so people at shows can hopefully come and hear for themselves.”

This year’s summer festival schedule sees them playing at Rockness, the Insider (Aviemore), Solas (South Lanarkshire), Downhill Downtown (Fort William) and Speyfest as well as HebCelt.

The 17th Hebridean festival will see the band return to Lewis where they played earlier this year and are expecting another great reception: “Having recently played a show in Stornoway we can expect a hearty reaction at HebCelt all going well.

“It was a very fun night and we were well looked after. That said, we’ll probably need to switch up the set a little so it’s a bit more festival friendly.

“We occasionally add live brass to our shows but it’s not always logistically easy to take that line up on the road. I’m sure the six of us will manage a fair racket though.”

So Admiral Fallow are where they want to be at this stage of their career? “Absolutely”, says Louis. “We get to travel around the world playing the music we’ve created to people who, most of the time, want to listen to it.

“It’s a great place to be in at this stage. We celebrate our sixth birthday in September and as long as we’re all still happy doing it and people still want to hear us we’ll be doing it for many years to come.”

© Heb Celt, 2012

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AS well as classics from their back catalogue, the band will be performing numbers from the Appointment With Mr Yeats album, composed by Scott by setting to music the lyrics of Irish poet WB Yeats.

The concept dates from 1991 when the band’s writer and frontman took part in a Yeats tribute concert in Dublin and decided the poet deserved a show to himself.

Mike Scott

“The idea then slumbered for many years, during which now and then I’d set another Yeats poem to music”, said Mike.

It was re-awakened in 2005 when The Waterboys’  fiddler Steve Wickham did a show of his own at the Yeats Summer School in Sligo and an inspired Scott decamped to his music room with a copy of Richard J. Finneran’s edition of The Complete Works of W.B. Yeats, given to him as a wedding present in 1990.

The result was a “fabulous avalanche of songs and arrangements”, according to the Edinburgh-born singer, with 15-16 being completed in a month.

Yeats, who died in 1939, is regarded as one of the foremost figures of 20th century literature. He first made an impression on Scott when he was a youngster growing up in a house full of books.

“I didn’t read him for myself until I was a teenager, when I found the poem News For The Delphic Oracle on a family bookshelf.  I didn’t understand the poem, but I loved it.

“Years later when The Waterboys first toured Ireland, I bought myself a volume of Yeats’ poems in a Dublin bookshop.  That’s when I started to become deeply familiar with his work.  I liked the combination of passion with his sculpted, almost surgically exact writing.  And I liked his subject set: love, metaphysics, politics, Ireland and myth.”

The album has 14 tracks which set Yeats’ words against a backdrop of full-on rock ‘n’ roll with the songs receiving acclaim from the critics and audiences during the band’s current tour of Europe.

“For Waterboys fans who wonder what on earth this is all about, I’d say listen to the music and forget any expectations you might have,” says Scott. “It’s a rock’n’roll record, and a majestic one at that.

“This isn’t a hack job of forcing two unwilling disciplines together, but something that wanted to happen artistically. My vision for this project always was that it should add up to a Greatest Hits album of killer stuff you’ve never heard before. Yeats’s poems demand nothing less.”  

Scott, whose first book, A Waterboy’s Adventures In Music, comes out in Ireland in June, is making a return to HebCelt after nine years but still has vivid memories of the occasion and can’t wait to return.

“I always love visiting the Western Isles and I have great memories of our last Hebcelt in 2003.  The place was hopping.

“I remember visiting Callanish, meals at our hotel in Stornoway and the sheer energy of the audience in the tent.

“I like (festivals) for different reasons.  Festivals are great fun, and I like to get a wander round the site.  They also pay well.”

So who is he looking forward to seeing this year? “I like The Proclaimers and Admiral Fallow, Roddy Woomble too.  I suspect the ubiquitous and very brilliant John McCusker will also be lurking with intent – probably in tents- waiting to sprinkle some fab fiddle on peoples’ music.”

The Waterboys will appear at HebCelt on Saturday 14 July.

 
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© HebCelt, 2012

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WITHOUT implying any slight on previous Hebridean Celtic Festivals, this year’s 16th gathering – customarily a milestone birthday – really felt like an event that had come of age.

Having attracted some of the best UK and international acts on today’s increasingly diverse folk/roots scene, it treated them to a true weekend hooley in inimitably Hebridean style. Numbers were still being crunched at time of writing, but while last year’s landmark festivities, complete with the Runrig factor, set an exacting new record with a total attendance of over 17,000, all the signs were that 2011’s tally won’t be far off that, if at all.

Not only was the main arena in Lews Castle grounds – expanded this year with a new second stage, launched as part of the Scotland’s Islands initiative – consistently thronged, but all the other events that complete the programme, at both the An Lanntair venue in Stornoway’s town centre and local halls across Lewis and Harris, reported back as very busy indeed.

Rachel Sermanni band on stage (courtesy Heb Celt Fest)

The Heb Celt today has also spawned an impressively large and diverse array of fringe attractions. Okay, it’s not every year that a squadron from the Tall Ships fleet sails into Stornoway harbour to join the party – though the timing was hardly coincidental, complementing as it did the annual Sail Hebrides maritime festival, which in turn has complemented the Heb Celt now for 13 years.

Also on offer to while away visitors’ days, though, were the Lewis Highland Games, several art exhibitions, a posse of the original Lewis chessmen at Museum nan Eilean, an inter-island shinty cup, live public radio broadcasts, a beginners’ Gaelic course and a continental-style market, plus lively informal sessions in Stornoway pubs. These last continued well into the evenings, alongside additional gigs by several festival acts in the local nightclub, and DJ Dolphin Boy’s three-night residency at HS1 café-bar.

In the days immediately after the last boatload of revellers left the island, as festival director Caroline Mclennan was buzzing about dealing with the aftermath (the dismantling of the massive, 5000-capacity main marquee, the crunching of those numbers and settling of accounts), she could hardly take a step in Stornoway for another local shopkeeper, hotelier, taxi-driver, publican or restaurateur stopping her to exclaim at how busy they’d been.

A second stage at the castle site has long been an aspiration for Mclennan and her team, but the rightness of its timing and planning were neatly encapsulated when a veteran festival volunteer was heard to comment, “It feels as if we’ve always had it.” Exact topographical positioning – for minimal sound-spill – and staggered scheduling, with performances on the Scotland’s Islands stage relayed into the big tent during intervals there, via both the PA and twin big screens, meant that flitting between the two couldn’t have been easier, yet neither impinged on enjoyment of the other.

Kan's Aiden O'Rourke (courtesy Heb Celt Fest)

The new addition also opens up the festival’s programming to a whole slew of acts who might previously have been too big and/or raucous for the theatre-style intimacy of An Lanntair, but not quite enough so for the main stage. This in turn coincides nicely with the rapid expansion of that extensive middle league, within the broad church of the folk scene, to encompass less traditional, more indie-inclined acts, memorably represented here by Radcliffe & Maconie favourites Woodenbox With A Fistful of Fivers, soulful Leòdhasach singer-songwriter The Boy Who Trapped the Sun, and feistily turbocharged Glasgow four-piece Kitty the Lion.

To the evident pleasure of the crowd – which included a strikingly healthy contingent of under-18s – these were mixed and matched with seemingly more straight-ahead, tunes-based lineups like the award-winning Highland combo Rura, Shetland’s Fullsceilidh Spelemannslag, heavy-hitting Orkney duo Saltfishforty and Celtic rave combo Niteworks, originally from Skye. Besides the music’s multifarious individual delights, the great thing was how well they all dovetailed, and highlighted each other’s contrasting qualities.

The same harmonious balance prevailed in the magnificent, cathedral-esque edifice of the big blue tent, with adroit juxtapositions like that of Dàimh – featuring Lewis-born Gaelic singer Calum Alex MacMillan – who opened proceedings there and set the bar awesomely high with a superb set on Thursday, with quirkily-named Oxford folk-popsters Stornoway, who gamely faced the music in the shape of a majority local crowd, and won them over with their own affectingly-accented balladry.

Friday delivered the exhilarating triple whammy of the new but already, it seems, all-conquering Mànran, followed by Eddi Reader with full band, on truly exultant form, and the Peatbog Faeries to finish, parading new fiddler Peter Tickell, new drummer Stu Haikney and material from new album Dust in euphorically authoritative style.

And then the big Saturday night duly capped it all, firstly with another captivating, spellbinding performance from meteorically-rising (and deservedly so) Highland star Rachel Sermanni – look to your laurels, Laura Marling. Next up was Kan, the still newish project jointly fronted by two of today’s most formidable Celtic instrumental talents, flute and whistle genius Brian Finnegan and Lau fiddler Aidan O’Rourke, with guitarist Ian Stephen and drummer Jim Goodwin supplying forceful yet agile rhythm work. Parts of their set, virtuosic though it was, came across as just a little too cerebral for this climactic stage of the weekend’s game, but when they kicked up into top gear the resulting noise – from both band and crowd – was totally joyous.

K T Tunstall salutes the crowd (courtesy Heb Celt Festival)

Finally, KT Tunstall’s headline appearance was the moment we’d all been waiting for, and she did anything but disappoint, gi’in it laldy with boundless enthusiasm and conviction, mixing the hits and favourites from breakthrough debut Eye to the Telescope with newer self-style “nature techno” fare from last year’s third album, Tiger Suit. Tunstall evidently fell as much in love with the Heb Celt’s uniquely uproarious welcome as its audience did with her, promising to come back “any time you want”, and thus joining the legions for whom this exceptional festival has become an unmissable homecoming fixture.

© Sue Wilson, 2011

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HAVING just been nominated as Best Large Festival in the forthcoming Scottish Event Awards – for its record-breaking 15th outing last year – the festival is substantially augmented by the addition of a second main-arena stage.

The latter development, launched under the banner of this year’s Scotland’s Islands programme – but intended as a permanent expansion – doubles at a stroke the number of acts performing at the tented festival enclosure in Lews Castle grounds, while broadening out the event’s heretofore folk-based programming (in the f-word’s conventional and/or Celtic sense) to encompass that hard-to-define but increasingly popular genre known as nu-folk.

Heb Celt headliner K T Tunstall

“I’m always wary of labels,” says Heb Celt co-founder and director Caroline Maclennan, who has watched its audience grow from 1200 at the inaugural festival, back in 1996, to 2010’s biggest-ever crowd of 17,000. “We’ve always interpreted ‘Celtic’ in as wide a sense as possible, to cover all its aspects, in both a traditional and a contemporary sense. Wanting the second stage to have a slightly different feel is really just an extension of that, reflecting the way the music’s developed – whether you call it nu-folk, or indie-folk or whatever, a lot of really good bands have emerged in that direction, who I think will go down well with our audience. I’ve never really had any hard and fast programming criteria, it’s more of a gut thing: just what feels right for this place.”

Underlining the point, the Scotland’s Islands stage mixes and matches both Celtic and trad-based fare, from the likes of Rura, Skye-derived fusioneers Niteworks, Orkney duo Saltfishforty and Shetland supergroup Fullsceilidh Spelemannslag, with more indie-oriented outfits including Woodenbox With a Fistful of Fivers, Ahab, Kitty the Lion, The Boy Who Trapped the Sun and Open Day Rotation – the last two both being native Lewis acts.

Stornoway set to play Stornoway

Similarly, over at the main stage, rising nu-folk star Rachel Sermanni and Oxford folk-pop combo Stornoway (a band surely self-destined to face their namesake home crowd at the Heb Celt) share the bill with Tunstall, plus Eddi Reader, the Peatbog Faeries, Dàimh, Mànran and the new Brian Finnegan/Aidan O’Rourke project Kan.

While the preponderance and variety of Scottish music at this year’s festival is testament to the roots scene’s countrywide health, the proportion of more immediately home-grown talent (Dàimh and Mànran also feature Lewis-born singers) highlights the pride of place given to Gaelic and Hebridean music since the event’s inception. There’s more in this vein, too, along at the An Lanntair arts centre, where Wednesday night’s opening concert teams up three young Gaelic singers, Darren MacLean, Jenna Cumming and Linda MacLeod, drawing respectively on the traditions of Skye, Harris and South Uist, with a crack instrumental squad, in a specially-devised programme on the Scotland’s Islands theme.

Saturday’s Pipes & Strings concert, meanwhile, incorporates a musical tribute to the late great Duncan Johnstone, a celebrated champion of island piping styles, performed by an ensemble including one of his best-known ex-pupils, Roddy MacLeod MBE, plus Glenuig brothers Iain and Allan MacDonald, with a string orchestra. Contemporary bluegrass combo Innes & Present Company, flying in from Brisbane to perform the previous day, are fronted by the expat son of renowned Barra singer Roddy Campbell, neatly exemplifying both the islands’ rich diasporan history and the Heb Celt’s homecoming motif, while the next generation parade their talents on Wednesday afternoon in a concert by South Uist’s Fèis Tìr a’ Mhurain youth music project.

Caroline Maclennan

“We’ve always seen the festival as an opportunity to showcase local music alongside international acts,” Maclennan says. “It implicitly makes the point that our artists and our culture are of the same world-class stature as anything we might bring in.” It’s also a key element in the festival’s distinctive identity and atmosphere; the sense that it’s evolved organically from the place where it happens, rather than being some transplanted concept dreamed up by marketing types elsewhere.

“Gaelic is very much part of what makes the islands special, and music is a really inclusive, engaging way to get that across to visitors who don’t speak it,” says Ian Fordham, director of the Tourism Hebrides development project, and proprietor of the Broad Bay guest house outside Stornoway – who himself moved to Lewis after first attending the Heb Celt in 2001. “Hearing it in this context very literally helps to bring the language alive.”

The festival’s unique ambience is further reinforced by the fact that over half its audience come from within the Western Isles, and that it’s become such a potent spur for island “exiles” all over the world to come back and visit. “Also because it’s happening in a small town, which really intensifies the buzz, I think that sense of place and community plays a big part in attracting people from elsewhere,” Maclennan continues. “It’s like an extension of traditional Highland hospitality: artists and audience both feel really welcomed by the locals.”

Over the years, too, the event has successfully consolidated its indigenous foundations by appealing across the generations: “Developing our family audience has been a key priority from the start, and it’s great nowadays to see the young folk from ten or 15 years ago coming along with their own kids, and the teenagers all desperate to get hold of the latest festival hoodies.”

The Heb Celt’s economic spin-offs have also played a significant role in making island life more sustainable: now established as easily the busiest week in the whole Western Isles calendar, it’s become a focal point for scheduling other events, including the Lewis Highland Games and the Sail Hebrides maritime festival, the latter complemented this year by a visit from some of the Tall Ships fleet.

Manran get nautical

As far back as 2004, the resulting additional cash injection into local coffers was estimated at £1.5 million – a figure that will surely have risen steeply when assessed by another study this year. The wider changes in Stornoway and Lewis life since 1996 are equally plain to see, from increased licensing hours and Sunday ferries to the vibrant artistic hub that is the new An Lanntair, custom-built and opened in 2005. And while the Heb Celt obviously can’t claim sole credit for these developments, it’s hard to imagine them having happened without it.

The Hebridean Celtic Festival runs from 13-16 July 2011.

© Sue Wilson, 2011

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IT’S to be a celebration of all that’s special about our culture, people and places – and with the flagship events now decided, the Year of Scotland’s Islands is hotting up.

Scotland’s Islands is a programme of festivals, events, exhibitions and other activities being held under one banner to showcase the vibrant culture and creativity throughout these more remote areas of Scotland, as well as their quality produce and natural beauty. It began in April and will run for 12 months, with events being held throughout all the inhabited islands off Scotland.

K T Tunstall is one of the headliners at the Hebridean Celtic Festival

Six Scottish local authorities with island communities are working together on the project, with Comhairle nan Eilean Siar being the lead authority. Joining the Western Isles are Highland, Shetland, Orkney, North Ayrshire and Argyll and Bute, with other stakeholders including Highlands and Islands Enterprise, Event Scotland, Visit Scotland and the European Regional Development Fund.

Regular meetings are held by telephone or video conferencing with a small team of staff at Comhairle nan Eilean Siar providing the administrative support.

Now the flagship events have been decided, it will be full steam ahead in staging the programme, which includes events in a myriad of categories including music, performing arts, heritage, arts and crafts, writing and publishing, food and drink and sport and outdoor.

One of the main events in the Scotland’s Islands calendar is the Hebridean Celtic Festival, being held in Stornoway in July. Other flagship events include a drama production of The Tempest at the St Magnus International Festival in Orkney next month, the Feisean BLAS festival in Skye and the Small Isles in September, and a storytelling festival at the end of October, which will involve storytelling events in a range of locations throughout the islands.

Details of the programme for the festival, An Island Odyssey: Scotland and Old Europe, are due to be published on the Scottish Storytelling Centre’s website early in September.

Flagship funding has also gone to The Pier Arts Centre in Orkney, the Tobar an Dualchais  collaborative recoding project, the ATLAS community arts project in Skye and the Camanachd Association’s shinty final, as well as the Tall Ships regatta.

Flagship funding for the Pier Arts Centre in Stromness

These are only the flagship events, though. More than 150 events, exhibitions and activities will take place as part of the Scotland’s Islands year. While most will be hosted on one of the country’s 42 inhabited islands, some will be held on the mainland or even as far afield as New York. No place is out of bounds, provided it has an island link.

The website (see link below) has a comprehensive list of what’s on and is easy to search, with options of selecting events by region, dates and keywords, meaning a would-be island-hopper can put together a personal itinerary to suit their particular interests.

A pot of more than £1.3million has been put aside for the programme, with 45 per cent of that coming from Europe. The rest came from the local authorities, HIE and Event Scotland.

Scotland’s Islands is one of the Scottish government’s ‘focus’ years, which are aimed at highlighting some of the country’s great assets. The focus years aim build on the success of Homecoming 2009, which generated an additional £53.7m for the economy, and began last year with Scotland’s Year of Food and Drink.

Murdo Mackay, development manager at Comhairle nan Eilean Siar, is among those leading the project from the Western Isles.

He explained: “The project is a series of island events across all of Scotland’s islands, as many of them as possible. The aim is to put the spotlight on island events, island culture and inter-island activities.”

There is a big area to cover, from Shetland down to Arran and Cumbrae in Ayrshire.

Murdo said: “It’s of value to the islands, definitely, and it’s hoped that there will be a legacy of raising the profile of island events and opportunities that visitors have on the islands. I’m hoping it will increase awareness, boost visitor numbers and hopefully have a continuing legacy in that it will continue to increase visitor numbers to the area.”

New and already-established events both come under the banner of Scotland’s Islands – but for long-running events to have been awarded funding they must have incorporated “something different” in their offering this year to mark the occasion.

The Hebridean Celtic Festival, for example – a huge draw every summer – is putting on a second stage for the first time this year, to mark Scotland’s Islands. The second stage will host singers and musicians with an island connection, including The Open Day Rotation, Saltfishforty and The Boy Who Trapped The Sun.

There will also be a distinct ‘Scotland’s Islands’ theme throughout the entire festival, with more of a focus this year on Scottish Celtic musicians, including headliner KT Tunstall and fellow Scots stars Eddi Reader and the Peatbog Faeries.

Festival director Caroline MacLennan said: “The second stage has always been an aspiration for us and we were fortunate to secure the funding from Scotland’s Islands.”

She said Scotland’s Islands brought “another dimension to the programme”, adding: “It increases the variety and the scope and the scale and makes the festival that much more appealing for both visiting and local festival-goers.

“It’s going to make a huge difference to the festival but it’s good to have a focus on Scotland’s islands, and it can only help to promote the remoter areas of rural Scotland and draw attention to what we do – not just the festival but the wider area. We are just grateful that we’ve got their support and we’re really looking forward to a great  festival.”

Scotland’s Islands events so far – which included the Celtic Media Festival in Stornoway in April – have had a good response.

Murdo said: “We’ve had quite good feedback on the way it’s going. It looks like it’s going to be a busy tourism year for Scotland’s islands, anyway. The reports we’re getting are that it’s looking quite lively.”

© Katie Laing, 2011

Links

• Scotland’s Islands 2011

La Bottine Souriante (photo - Leila Angus)

IN ITS 14th year, the Hebridean Celtic Festival weathered something approaching a perfect storm of adversity. The clouds that gathered weren’t least of the literal variety, starting with those that dropped a prodigious four-hour downpour over Stornoway on Thursday afternoon – just as the massive blue marquee in Lews Castle grounds was being readied, and the bands soundchecked, for that night’s first gig.

It kept on raining pretty much all weekend, apart from a day’s sunny respite on Friday – but even this was overcast after word came through mid-morning that the MV Isle of Lewis, bringing the first of that day’s three scheduled boatloads to the festival’s biggest night, had lost power in one engine en route from Ullapool, eventually limping in two hours late.

Both return crossings were duly cancelled, leaving hundreds marooned on either side of the Minch while engineers worked frantically to diagnose and repair the trouble, which took around 24 hours, and other boats were redeployed from Islay and Uist to tackle the backlog.

All of which, of course, only intensified the brouhaha over the same weekend’s launch of a Sunday ferry service for Lewis, in the teeth of implacable opposition from the staunchest of the island’s uniquely large and influential Free Presbyterian community, and amid interestingly mixed feelings among a surprising proportion of its other inhabitants.

The festival’s organisers had already had to gird themselves – at a day’s notice – to field umpteen media enquiries about an issue on which they’ve always stayed resolutely neutral. As they battled to rearrange travel for several headline performers (Friday’s main evening flight from Inverness was also cancelled, just to add to the chaos), meanwhile confronting the prospective non-arrival of several hundred ticket-holders; as the jokes about divine retaliation inevitably snowballed (along with conspiracy theories of Sabbatarian sabotage), director Caroline MacLennan and her team could certainly have been forgiven for failing to see the funny side.

And all the more so, too, given the festival’s biggest problem of all this year, namely a substantial downturn in ticket sales, reportedly most conspicuous among its bedrock local audience.

A number of obvious factors contributed – most obviously the recession, which has kiboshed so many of this summer’s festivals altogether, and also rather glaringly the simultaneous presence in Stornoway of Circus Berlin, in another massive tent just down the road, a programming clash for which whoever is responsible should be roundly pilloried. (And given that 14 years surely constitutes a reasonable prior claim on the weekend in question, it’s hardly the festival’s fault; some discern another instance of attempted sabotage.)

The prevailing local view as to why numbers were down, especially among its younger population, was easy to discover: this year’s line-up, and in particular Friday’s top headliner Sharon Shannon, simply wasn’t a big enough draw. Within the parameters of the folk or Celtic audience per se, the calibre of acts could hardly be faulted, but for those less directly or specifically engaged with this area of music, there was no-one providing that higher-profile lure of mainstream rock’n’pop kudos or glitter, as has capped previous bills in the shape of the Proclaimers, Van Morrison, Runrig and the Waterboys.

Shannon’s uncanny perennial youthfulness, personally as well as musically, may prompt Dorian Gray-esque suspicions, but in fact she’s been leading the field of contemporary Irish folk for a good 20 years now, while the mighty La Bottine Souriante, Thursday’s star turn, who had certainly attained Celtic-supergroup status in the legendary incarnation that first graced the Heb Celt back in 1997, are now into their fourth decade, albeit with a fair few personnel changes along the way.

Crucially, too, neither of them has ever had a hit single on these shores. Exacerbated by everyone’s emptier pockets – and with a little help from the circus – the 2009 programme just didn’t do the business,

It did, however, lay on a wealth of exceedingly fine music. With only one or two longtime members left, La Bottine’s set may not quite have attained the unforgettable magic of their 1990s glory days, but nonetheless thoroughly captivated the crowd with its tautly efficient musicianship, in their signature brass-laced arrangements of traditional-style Quebecois material, allied to lashings of extrovert showmanship.

They followed on from similarly sterling work by Missouri hoedown posse The Wilders, serving up their fiery moonshine blend of old-time Americana and 21st-century punk attitude, and the Blair Douglas Band, a specially-convened seven-piece which saw the much-loved Gaelic accordionist and composer joined by the likes of fiddler Gordon Gunn, guitarist Chaz Stewart and bassist Bobby Millar, plus Gaelic singer Kathleen MacInnes, who was in truly stunning voice.

Big, expansive arrangements of both tunes and songs vibrantly interwove rock, pop and country strands with Celtic colours and atmosphere, in one of the weekend’s standout performances.

In musical terms, too, Shannon certainly didn’t disappoint – other than in that her accompanying big-band line-up didn’t include any big-name singers, as it generally does, leaving it to guitarist Gareth Maher and one of the tech crew to step up into this role, rather less than adequately.

But with tunes predominating in the mix, and Shannon’s joyously magpie-minded playing complemented by such fellow instrumental virtuosos as banjo icon Gerry O’Connor and guitarist Tim Edey – who turned in a literally jaw-dropping extended duet as well as their ensemble contributions – this proved a minor shortcoming.

Australian folk-rock outfit The Ploughboys were a considerable disappointment, however, delivering little if anything to differentiate them from the lumpen ploddy mass of their genre – especially coming after the dazzling sophistication, technical ambition and genuine originality of Box Club, who opened the show.

What with one thing and another, though – not least those two missing boatloads on Friday – easily the best and busiest night was Saturday, despite the rain bucketing down once again. Young local heroes Face the West kicked things off in magnificent style, going down as many people’s highlight of the weekend, before Orkney octet The Chair, one of last year’s most popular acts, made it two in a row in brilliantly barnstorming style – even after having been booked on that cancelled Inverness flight, and subsequently rerouted all the way via Edinburgh over the next twelve hours or so.

As a show-closing singalong, with the Isle of Lewis even then being readied to meet its date with destiny the next day, their raucously gleeful encore with ‘Highway to Hell’ could scarcely have been bettered – but lucky for us, we still had the Michael McGoldrick Band to go.

Guest vocalist Karen Matheson also nodded slyly to the impending occasion with a Gaelic waulking song summarised as “rantings from the pulpit”, while McGoldrick’s superb seven-man crew bade a resplendent simultaneous farewell to the festival, and to the richly honed live material from his last album Wired, ahead of its successor Aurora’s eagerly-anticipated release later this year.

© Sue Wilson, 2009

• Hebridean Celtic Festival
• Leila Angus at the Hebridean Celtic Festival 2009

North Lewis-style dipping lugsails (photo - James Morrison).

THIS YEAR I’ve the benefit of a wee bit of additional consultancy with regard to the local slant on the Heb Celt.  After Anna Murrray’s very, very late post festival-club appearance at a certain kitchen party, we’ve exchanged notes.

And again I’m going to sketch a connection with the Sail Hebrides Festival, timed to coincide with the music events. This year we achieved a wide skyline of distinctive North Lewis-style dipping lugsails. These are a very similar shape to lateen sails so when they’re well-trimmed they produce a shape you remember.

From Wednesday to Saturday that fleet, joined with large numbers of visiting yachts and dinghies large and small, produced an imagery which was a real water-borne show. It takes a bit of arranging to produce that kind of shot.

Anna and I both came up with the idea that a band or a singer has also to put on a show to make a mark at this busy noisy sprawling event which is mainly half a week of good natured mayhem.

Thus we both settled on La Bottine Souriante as a triumph. It wasn’t just the showband-style synchronised movements of the brass section – though that was smooth. The pace was relentless and the balance of the tunes arranged so the performance was indeed a show. This is the third time I’ve seen them work their magic in Scotland and I’d say this was the strongest yet.

Whereas. for me, the ease and fluency of the Michael McGoldrick Band was just that bit too smooth for the rough texture and noisy tent culture of the main stage here. Anna enjoyed the band but reckoned the order of the night didn’t suit them. The Chair drove the energy level higher earlier on, and even the power of the vastly experienced band was not quite up to the mission of following that. I caught The Chair at the Festival club later on and an Lanntair was jumping.

The unpromising sounding Aussie band The Ploughboys were another Festival club hit, as were the local heroes Face the West. I’ve been observing the development of the latter over the last year. Keith Morrison drives the show from the keyboards but the guys are kilted up and swaying in time.

Again, the pace is the thing and they build it well. Add the dynamism of Alasdair White’s fiddle and additional guests and the pace is better than steady, I’d have liked to see how they fared in the big tent but it was no surprise to see them gain a well-deserved ovation at the Club.

I’m dependent on Anna’s comments on the afternoon sessions. I was trimming some of said sails at the times. But Anna thought these slots came into their own this year. Many of them were sold out and highlights included another example of showmanship in the professional presentation of young people who have been attending sessions in the Hebridean Feisean movement.

The students, guided by the very fine singer Norrie MacIver, built their individual efforts into an audio-visual performance of a newly commissioned song by Calum Macdonald.

This swings us right back to a pronounced theme of this “Homecoming” Festival. The recent revival of Na h-Oganaich reminded us how the great songs of Murdo Macfarlane found a new and wider audience by a rhythmic presentation of them at the Pan-Celtic Festival in Killarney.

And so it came to pass that Sheila Stewart could encourage Martyn Bennett to do more still of whatever he wanted to her recorded voice as it would reach folk she’d never find alone. Calum Martin’s Megantic Outlaw project is somewhere between these.

Again I’m dependent on other local reactions to the show, but the word round the hoil (harbour) is that he pulled it off by assembling a strong ensemble combining contacts made during the Psalm and Soul project (Nashville connections on bass and drums) and locally based heroes such as the excellent Andy Yearley (keyboard accordion) and his daughter Isobel Ann’s superb voice and strong stage presence.

After the telling of the title-yarn, the second half goes into a more freestyle performance. But still a showband, supplemented by Ado Matheson, a guitarist with a very strong following in these here streets.

So can it all go on? Yes, but I’d say on the strength of what I saw and heard, the festival club was stronger than the Tent. The connections with events such as Sail Hebrides and with the Feisean movement are all working. I’m not too worried about how we define Celtic. I’d like to see the World Music slant on the Festival main stage show taken that bit further. And maybe in juxtaposition with a popular music slant.

© Ian Stephen, 2009

Links

• Hebridean Celtic Festival
• Ian Stephen
• Leila Angus at the Hebridean Celtic Festival 2009

It did rather contradict my gloomy assessment of the effects of the recession on the arts scene last month, but I suspect it will prove to be a particularly productive blip rather than set the pace for the rest of the summer. (I neglected to mention in that survey that the Connect festival in Inverary wasn’t happening this year either, although they do hope to return next year).

It was great to see so much going on, and a great deal of it to a very high standard. I was very impressed with the two NTS Transform projects in Elgin and Thurso (the latter was particularly ambitious) that I had the opportunity to follow in some detail. To see the level of commitment and enthusiasm they got from often initially reluctant or suspicious school groups, and the equally enthusiastic participation of community groups in Thurso, was extremely heartening.

For a variety of reasons we were unable to plant anyone in the NTS Orkney project, Mixter Maxter, and just to round out our neglect of it, neither of our reviewers at the St Magnus Festival was able to see it. It was well-received by the critics (see, for example, Joyce McMillan in The Scotsman), and you can also check out some of the participants’ own blogs and videos at this site.

July is shaping up to be a little less frenetic, although that won’t be the case in Stornoway, where the Hebridean Celtic Festival will unleash its usual good times. The rather more sedate Mendelssohn On Mull festival also occupies its usual slot early in the month.

There is lots of grassroots activity as well. The Feisean programme is well underway around the Highlands & Islands , as are the ceilidh trials, including the Caledonian Ceilidh Trail. The Inverness Highland Games in the Bught Park includes some arts events among the sport.

I can’t say that Homecoming Scotland has impinged a great deal on my own sphere of activity, aside from the Burns 250th Anniversary flurry (much of which would have happened anyway) early in the year and the odd themed commission here and there, but the main event of the programme, The Gathering , takes place in Edinburgh this month, and may raise the profile a bit.

In our lead interview this month, Helen Slater caught up with dancer and choreographer Christine Devaney as she and her collaborators worked on developing a new show during a two-week residence at Eden Court Theatre in June.

We have also instituted a new function on many of the reviews and features, where clicking on the writer’s name in the © credit at the end of the piece will take you to a short biography and picture of the said writer (one or two have chosen to remain anonymous, and some others have not yet got round to it, so if you click and nothing happens, that’s why).

Kenny Mathieson
Commissioning Editor, Northings

Kenny Mathieson lives and works in Boat of Garten, Strathspey. He studied American and English Literature at the University of East Anglia, graduating with a BA (First Class) in 1978, and a PhD in 1983. He has been a freelance writer on various arts-related subjects since 1982, and contributes to the Inverness Courier, The Scotsman, The Herald, The List, and other publications. He has contributed to numerous reference books, and has written books on jazz and Celtic music.

Christine Primrose and Brian Ó hEadhra

LOVE, EH? Does the light of your life’s singing make even the lark keep schtum? Are you besotted with someone who needs no cosmetically enhancing products? Would you never let this person carry peats, no matter how long you’d gone without a supply?

The late Lewis bard Murdo Macfarlane could apparently answer yes to all of these questions – and that gathering winter fuel rider was the deciding factor for Christine Primrose, whose soulful expression brought Macfarlane’s Mhorag to three-dimensional life in this latest airing of Dhachaigh.

Primrose was one of four Lewis singers featured in a celebration of the bard’s songs and his spirit, through works in sympathy with his own. It takes its cue from the Macfarlane exhibition staged in 2002 by the estimable Stornoway arts centre, An Lanntair, which in turn inspired an opening concert at the Hebcelt 2007 festival and the subsequent CD, Dhachaigh (Home), released last year.

Encompassing recordings of Paul Mounsey’s majestic overture and finale and notably sunny on-screen images that made one wonder why Macfarlane ever left Lewis in the first place – his homesickness and speedy return from Canada being a recurring theme – the concert gave the lie to the notion, often circulated by Gaels themselves, that Gaelic song is a miserablist’s paradise.

Sure, there were periods of longing and gory wartime images, the latter adding an element of defiance to Ishbel MacAskill’s calm, soothing tones as she sang Macfarlane’s World War 1 reflection, Naoi Ceud Deug’s a Ceithir Deug, with its depiction of young Gaels’ blood draining into the Flanders soil. But the overall mood conveyed was that, whatever disaster should befall, the joy of life, love and mischief (what on earth is happening to that goat in that closing puirt-a-beul?) will overcome it.

Joining Primrose and MacAskill on stage left, Fiona Mackenzie lent her youthful, almost girlish engagement, while Calum Alex MacMillan sang with typical richness and Dublin Gael Brian Ó hEadhra (guitar), Aberdeenshire’s Fraser Fifield (soprano saxophone and whistles) and Lewisman Alasdair White (fiddle and cittern) provided accompaniment and instrumental interludes.

MacMillan is a wonderful singer, almost luxuriating in the baritone register, and his remembrance of the Iolaire disaster, sung to White’s simple but very effective fiddle drones, and his depiction of a drought in Tobair Tobair Siolaidh, atmospherically enhanced by Fifield’s saxophone and electronic effects, were contrasting highlights.

Ó hEadhra’s nostalgic Taladh Na Beinne Guirme, written in a style not dissimilar to Macfarlane’s, was one of several anthemic songs that, alongside the inevitable Macfarlane classic Canan Nan Gaidheal, underlined the uplifting and indeed celebratory nature of a thoroughly enjoyable presentation.

Sponsored by Scottish Power.

© Rob Adams, 2009

Links

• Celtic Connections
• An Lanntair
• Hebridean Celtic Festival
  

Julie Fowlis and Mary Smith (photo - Peter Urpeth)

IT IS NOW almost a contractual necessity for reviewers of British summer music festivals to dwell on the vagaries of the climate and the appalling public health consequences of the seemingly endless deluge that is the British summer in these modern times.

The latest excesses of this climatic speculation include digressions on the apparent re-emergence of such good -ol’- days diseases as Trench Foot before the reviewer can queue for three hours to get into the half-cooked, extortionately expensive meat-and-drink of his/her comments on the actual performers at the festival in question.

Such medical observations have in the ‘naughties’ replaced the grizzly image of half-cut, cider-netics drowning in lakes of human slurry as the popular image of outdoor music events that predominated in the 80s and 90ss.

Well, this reviewer is no different, and knows a good opportunity for cliché confirmation when he hears it. That golden opportunity arose on the very last evening of the 13th Hebridean Celtic Festival. The band playing were Iain Morrison and the Sleepy Cafe Band (more about this fine outfit later), the singer, Daibhidh Martin.

During one of the band’s highly entertaining numbers Daibhidh intoned the lines: “In this never-ending rain, I feel my face begin to run.”

As a fellow resident of Lewis, all I can say is that I know how he feels and greatly admire that fine writer’s ability to combine the issues of climate and health in one brisk, witty and efficient line.

In Daibhidh Martin, a native of the Lochs district of Lewis, there are many, many more such lines of imagination – a combination of sturdy, old Gaelic knowing and wide-world experience that prizes open the stiff-spined clam of island life to expose a glimpse of the weird, salty, colourful world inside.

Sadly for the purposes of this review, the weather wasn’t at all bad at this year’s event, and the sanitary facilities were the best I can remember at this festival. At times it was blazing warm, sure the frequent showers were straight from the Baltic, but on the key issues of weather and pubic health, this Festival was a belter.

Now, in the space left for the review, I’d like to mention something about the music on offer.

With so much focus on the proceedings in the big tent, this reviewer took it upon himself to go in search of the alternatives at this year’s festival, and to focus his attentions on the proceedings of the festival away from the epicentre, mostly the programme of afternoon duets and evening gigs at Stornoway’s An Lanntair arts centre.

The result was finding a festival that featured at least two tunes dedicated to Outer Hebridean golf courses; a wealth of male Gaelic singing and – a bit like Big Blue herself – a festival that is pegged and grounded at its edges in the peaty earth of Gaelic traditional music.

The opening concert of the Hebridean Celtic Festival 2008 offered a chance for local audiences to catch what is now becoming something of a regular concert pairing between two of the Hebrides’ most celebrated singers, Mary Smith and Julie Fowlis.

It was, of course, also a chance to hear side-by-side two singers whose routes centre stage could not have been more different. In this concert, the pair featured many songs very much from their respective homelands, Ness, Isle of Lewis and North Uist. Where opportunity arose, we were even treated to the local versions of some songs – such as ‘Thig am Bata’ – that have many geographical variations throughout the Gaelic song world.

The rise of Julie Fowlis to almost mainstream media musical status has been nothing short of meteoric – a rise that is based on Julie’s sweet voice, sound musicality (as this concert showed once again, Julie is a highly accomplished piper), sheer hard work and the backing of a media savvy record label. The fact that there are ears open to Gaelic music in the high places of national broadcasting does owe considerable debt to the musicians, bands, agents and promoters who have over the last couple of decades pushed for such mainstream recognition. And why not?

But it also amounts to evidence of a latent interest and responsiveness in the infrastructure of the mainstream musical / broadcasting world that in her early days, Ness-born singer, Mary Smith, would probably never have dreamt of witnessing. Such interest is, of course, as fickle as… well, we’d best not go there… less clear is the route to securing the sustained mainstream interest, but one senses that if anyone can, then it’s Julie.

In this concert, there was also the fascinating dynamic of the … ah-um… young and the older performing together. This dynamic in traditional Gaelic song is not limited to the matter of how the voice naturally alters with age, or of some crass assumptions about the supposed relative emotional knowledge that the more mature singer brings to the song.

The fact is that, in general, an older generation of singers do sing the songs of this tradition quite differently to their younger counterparts, although even that statement has to be taken with cognizance of some major exceptions.

The profound difference is between the singers who rigidly adhere to the received methodological traditions of Gaelic singing as being the heart of the tradition (as opposed to the repertoire of traditional songs) – especially with regard to melisma, and the dominant rhythm coming from the words – and those who don’t, preferring to sing Gaelic traditional songs in the manner, and with the formalities of other musical styles and traditions.

Why this duo works, amongst other reasons, is that whilst Mary Smith is one of the greatest living exponents of Gaelic traditional singing, Julie Fowlis is, in this context, much closer to her in the spectrum of difference outlined above, and perhaps this is evidence that the ‘tradition’ itself changes, is dynamic and evolving.

One reason, perhaps, for Julie’s relative success is that her blend of new and old is more successful and coherent than others who have tried to ‘rework’ the tradition over the years, only time will tell. On the evidence of this intimate concert, Julie’s relationship to the ‘tradition’ feels far less forced and precious, more natural – it is of course part of her own upbringing, and she has the Gaelic – and freer than some of her predecessors.

This was especially evident in Julie’s (first stage) performance of a song from her native North Uist, ‘Tha Mi Falbh Air Thuras’. The words of this song were written by a gamekeeper in South Uist who eventually turned against the killing of animals, and who knew his stock of deer so well that he had individual names for them.

The fact that Julie met the writer and that, in a manner close to the tradition, this song has personal importance and immediacy for the singer, resulted in a performance that was rich and moving. Julie’s performance of ‘An Eala Bhan’, a well-known song written from the trenches of WW1 by a soldier longing to return to North Uist, was equally poignant.

Mary Smith’s performance of ‘Cùl Do Chinn’, [The back of your neck] an elegaic, c.19th lyric from North Dell, in the Ness district of Lewis, written in praise of Angus, a supposedly very handsome lad who emigrates leaving his heart-broken lover behind, was for this reviewer the highlight of the concert, and highlights why Mary Smith is held in such high regard by her contemporaries.

The plaintive emotion in the song was delivered by Mary Smith with such clear insistence of phrase and precision of a rhythm given only from the words and the pattern of verses and choruses, that we passed effortlessly beyond the simple pain of longing to a real sense of hopelessness – that borne of the absolute parting that the Atlantic so often represented, and is oft represented in song form.

Mary Smith’s mid-register voice has a profound and steadfast beauty that at once contains both strength and frailty, such that it is the epitome of Lewis and that island’s Gaelic song traditions. Her singing is at the same time contemporary Gaelic song at its best, and she has very few peers.

This was, in short, Gaelic singing and song in its full majesty, and was an absolute privilege to witness.

Whilst the female Gaelic singing voice is now heard in some very mainstream musical environments, thanks to efforts of the like of Julie Fowlis, its male counterpart has, over recent years, not received anything near the same exposure. In fact, it is fair to say that with a few notable exceptions, and outside of the Mod, male Gaelic singing – especially in ensemble mode – has become something of a rare, live encounter.

But Gaelic singer, clasach player and award winning broadcaster, Mary Ann Kennedy’s new band Na Seòid [The Heroes], launched to great acclaim at last year’s Blas Festival, looks set to remedy at least some of that sad deficit.

If the quality of this considerable array of male singing talent were ever in question, the doubts were unfounded, as one member of its ranks quipped during the second half of this hugely enjoyable performance at An Lanntair – the band have more gold medals between them than the Kenyan long distance running team.

Many members of the band will of course be familiar to followers of Gaelic music both inside and outside of the Mod, including 2004 Young Traditional Musician of the Year, James Graham, Calum Alex MacMillan (Daimh), Tormod MacArthur (Meantime Ceilidh Band), Gillebride MacMillan, Norrie MacIver (Bodega), Griogar Lawrie and Angus MacPhail (Skippinish).

Apart from the fact that there were so many, high quality male voices on display, this performance also brought to the fore the fact that having a band comprised entirely of Gaelic speakers, really does make a qualitative difference to the performance of Gaelic song.

It is a stated aim of Mary Ann Kennedy in this project to have a band comprised of singers and musicians that use Gaelic in their daily lives and interactions, and that the language is not therefore just something for performance.

With much of the evening comprised of the band working in solo, duo, trio or small ensembles, mixing up vocal-only and accompanied songs, the range and style of material is as wide as any Gaelic band this reviewer has encountered, including new songs by band members, and traditional songs both familiar and less so.

In performing such a wide variety of material there is a risk that the overall purpose might be unclear and difficult to distinguish – is this a concert band or a ceilidh band? However, at An Lanntair the balance was finely achieved, creating a real sense of informality while retaining the space and authority for some darker moods and emotions – attaining that unique feel of truly Gaelic ceilidhs where the ebb and flow of material is pretty much an organic and responsive call with room for the lament as much as the out-and-out joyous and light-hearted.

At this gig, the banter matched the overall sense of celebration. Including the revelation that Gillebride MacMillan’s (Gaelic – Gillebrìde Mac’IlleMhaoil) new nickname is ‘pretty boy’, thanks to the efforts of a state-side clan gathering announcer who mispronunced Gillebride’s name as ‘Gile-breagha’. Praise also to James Graham who obviously didn’t listen to his phone messgaes before heading out for the gig, as he was the only man not dressed in the uniform black shirt and trousers, going instead for an off pink shirt and peach tie. Lovely.

Amongst the instrumental highlights were Mary Ann Kennedy’s own flowing clarsach and Griogair Lawrie’s fine fingered guitar stylings. Hats-off also to Tiree’s own Angus MacPhail, whose melodious box serviced the band all night until such time as he finally coaxed into taking a turn at the mic’ – and what a fine resonant, bass voice he possesses.

But the strength of this band is in its unique male, ensemble sound, heard to great effect on the opening song of the evening, ‘Chunna Mise Mo Leanna’, which received a forceful, rugged working, and in the later, ‘Sgeir An Oir’ , in a rendition which enabled the beguiling tenderness and introspection of the male ensemble sound to emerge.

At last! evidence that being locked in the cupboard at school for hours on end is not at all bad for your music career – more on that later.

The duet at An Lanntair of Lewis-born fiddler / multi-instrumentalist Alasdair White (Tong, Lewis) and singer / piper Calum Alex MacMillan (Point, Lewis), brought together in their first concert outing two of Lewis’s finest in a pairing that, despite both musicians still being in their early 20s, has long roots. Both also had the privilege to be taught as youngsters by Pipe Major Iain Morrison (Queen’s Own Highlanders) of Back, Lewis, who, as a teacher, not only has the same formidable reputation as he had as a performing piper and a staunch attachment to the right way of doing things when it comes to pìobaireachd, but is also a master exponent of the Lewis / West Coast pipe style that has so influenced the music of these two performers, alongside many others.

The afternoon concert saw Alasdair [see Peter’s interview with Alasdair from the festival in Features – Ed] and Calum perform as a duet and in solo instrumental and voice settings, covering traditional Gaelic songs including ‘Dh’Fhalbh Mo Run’, ‘Seinn An Duan Seo’, and ‘Air Fa la la lo’, as well as sets of solo and duet jigs, reels and airs on violin, small pipes, whistles, guitar and bouzouki.

Calum Alex’s voice is mellow and sonorous bringing quiet authority to the airs he performs, and a crisp clarity to puirt a beul – and he is a first-rate piper. With the precision and melody of Alasdair White on violin, guitar and bouzouki, this was a display of masterly musicianship whose energy was never wasted on the merely pyrotechnical.

These are Gaelic musicians raised with a strong awareness and instinctive knowledge of both the traditions, formalities and oft joyous purposes of the music they play and were raised within – as the first line of ‘Seinn An Duan Seo’ suggests they certainly did sing their song to a happy isle.

But this review has to end on one further note of praise. For this reviewer the highlight of this year’s Hebridean Celtic Festival came at this gig in the form of a solo fiddle set from Alasdair White. Playing the tunes ‘South Oust Golf Club’ / ‘Christy Campbell’s’ / ‘The Amorous Lover’ / ‘Dancing in Habilis’ / ‘The Siesta’, Alasdair gave a demonstration of island fiddling that was of the absolute highest quality. Swinging this set of melodies through lightning-quick embellishments and slides, he has surely emerged as the finest and most entertaining Gaelic fiddler of his generation.

The Sleepy Cafe Band is, as far as a simple definition allows, the vehicle by which Lewis’s own Iain Morrison performs his ‘solo’ material (voice, guitar, small pipes). That said, the band at An Lanntair for this performance included musicians from the other fine outfit he fronts, Crash My Model Car, in Tony Soave on drums, and Ali Whitty on bass, along with poet / songwriter/ performer Daibhidh Martin. And completing the line-up was ex-Capercaillie whistle maestro / multi-instrumentalist, Marc Duff.

Performing songs largely taken from their recent album, ‘Skimming Stones…Sinking Boats’, and the earlier, ‘Empty Beer Bottles and Peat Fire Smoke’, Iain Morrison’s music is an enigmatic and truly original mix of creative elements, that in a very large part is very much his and their own, and which, beyond its immediate sonorous beauty, has a depth of startlingly imaginative, even surreal, observation that equals the likes of Bjork (but without the twee, pouty twists) and Howe Gelb at their most introspective and personal best.

At times it’s contemporary acoustic rock, at other times, its part folk band, part troubadour’s tribe. But then, you’re running with some lightning quick sets on pipes and whistles.

In this musical journey, Iain has taken with him fellow poet Daibhidh Martin of Lochs who contributed the words to two of the bands finest songs, ‘Skimming Stones’ and ‘Winter, Part 1′, and performs with the band in a kind of speak-over, recital style above the music. Daibhidh’s contribution, one senses, is as much directional as it is material, encouraging his counter-point (not too much encouragement needed, one suspects) in pushing the shape and imagery of the material into some truly original places. The impact is really in terms of narrative, of story-telling, of mythologising, but also of grounding the entire scheme in new island sensibilities.

Attempts to pin Iain Morrison’s style into neat comparisons and influences have, as a consequence seen mentions for the likes of Leonard Cohen and Nick Drake. But think also of Donovan, Lou Reed and David Byrne, and yep, you’d be no closer to forcing Iain Morrison’s music into the mould of your choosing. What can be said for certain is that Iain Morrison has managed to find a sound world in which all the disparate parts of his musical knowing and inclination combine in an invisible and effortless blend.

That, and the fact that he is as good a piper as you’ll see anyway on your musical travels – but then, you’d expect nothing less from the son of the great pipe major himself, Iain Morrison (a.k.a Dad, as Iain Jnr calls him) – makes this one the most original bands to emerge from the Long Isle in many a year.

The large, very mixed crowd at An Lanntair confirm the wide appeal of Iain Morrison’s music, that and the fact that the Gaelic music and piping he grew up with have no need to lurk in a cosy, self-reflective ghetto.

© Peter Urpeth, 2008

Links

• Hebridean Celtic Festival
• Heb Celt 2008 Picture Gallery
• Alasdair White interview

Shooglenifty (photo - Jan Schouten, courtesy www.hebceltfest.com)

ANY ADVANCE superstitious anxieties among the organisers of the 13th Heb Celt festival were comprehensively laid to rest by another mightily successful weekend – even if it was immediately preceded by storm-force gales midweek, resulting in a somewhat frantic scramble to get the big tent up and rigged in time.

Come Thursday evening, however, thanks to the crew’s heroic efforts, up and rigged it duly was, in all its 5500-capacity splendour, a flamboyant blue interloper beneath the stern grey towers of Lews Castle. To complete the spectacular setting, the arena overlooked a harbourful of boats in town for the Sail Hebrides maritime gathering, one of several non-musical events – also including the Lewis Highland Games and a challenge-cup shinty match against Uist – timed to coincide with the festival.

The Heb Celt has always capitalised fruitfully on its location’s cultural as well as physical assets, with Gaelic artists assuming their rightfully prominent place throughout the programme. It was thus entirely fitting for Thursday’s three-band bill to be opened by Gaeldom’s biggest current star, Julie Fowlis, bringing home the songs with which she’s won such far-reaching acclaim.

Appearing with the top-notch Scottish/Irish line-up of her husband Eamonn Doorley (bouzouki), Duncan Chisholm (fiddle), Tony Byrne (guitar), Ewen Vernal (double bass) and Martin O’Neill (bodhrán), the Uist-born singer clearly relished the chance to sing to her ain folk (or whatever the equivalent phrase is in Gaelic), delivering a set that matched unerring technique with characteristic vivacity and polish.

It’s getting on for ten years now since the maverick Irish posse Four Men and a Dog ceased regular touring, but there remain many on the folk scene who cherish memories of their heyday, and keep a keen eye out for their infrequent festival appearances. Not that the band are remotely interested in trading on past glories: basically they get together when offered a gig they all fancy doing, and get stuck in with all their old awesome, incandescent, muck-sweat gusto.

Their two main melody players, fiddler Cathal Hayden and banjo player/fiddler Gerry O’Connor, are both revered icons in their own right, and let rip here with some inspired solo workouts as well as dazzling duels, further enriched by Donal Murphy’s rippling, muscular, sweet-hued accordion.

Indivisibly locked on were the twin rhythmic motors of Kevin Doherty’s guitar and Gino Lupari’s bodhrán, as the tunes careered merrily between Irish trad and Americana twang, interspersed with a variety of country-blues and Tin Pan Alley-style songs, and some consummate comic grandstanding from the inexhaustibly extrovert Lupari.

Closing out the first night were the Red Hot Chilli Pipers, winners of BBC1 talent show When Will I Be Famous (also Best Live Act at last year’s Scots Trad Music Awards), and fronted by former Radio Scotland Young Traditional Musician of the Year, Stuart Cassells. For those who haven’t yet encountered this particular showbiz phenomenon, Cassells is flanked by two other pipers, two pipe drummers, and a battery of electric guitars, bass, keyboards and more percussion.

They made a superb entrance, heralded by a top-volume blast of ‘Jupiter’ from Holst’s The Planets, before launching into a show that ranged from a cover of Coldplay’s ‘Clocks’ to ‘Highland Cathedral’, the latter’s turgid rhythms somewhat enlivened by an unexpected tinge of Ravel’s ‘Bolero’. In between, there were plenty of souped-up jigs and reels, an exhilarating joust between two of the percussionists, and lashings of shamelessly cheesy showmanship.

It was crude, crashy and flagrantly commercial – some might say crass – but also slick, skilful and executed with admirable commitment, not to mention a liberal shot of saving humour.

Alongside the main tented gigs, the festival programme featured daily afternoon and evening concerts at Stornoway’s An Lanntair arts centre. Thursday’s daytime slot was occupied by the excellent Orkney duo Saltfishforty, comprising Brian Cromarty on guitar, mandola and vocals with fiddler Douglas Montgomery – both also members of rambunctious eight-piece outfit The Chair, of whom more later.

As a double-act, they favour an arrestingly raw-boned yet richly accomplished mix of Orkney tunes old and new with gutsy blues and bluegrass accents, propelled by insistent, sharp-edged grooves.

There were plenty of the latter at work, too, during Ross Ainslie and Jarlath Henderson’s An Lanntair show the following night, with Ali Hutton on guitar lending an array of springy cross-rhythms and canny background colours to the Scots/Irish piping pair’s intricately intertwined, brilliantly quicksilver melodies.

As ever, their outstanding individual prowess and their uncanny mutual attunement – plus the evident delight they themselves take in both – were equally a joy to behold, in a well-chosen set that saw both main players alternating bagpipes with low whistle, while tempering pyrotechnic dance medleys with lyrical slower pieces.

Back on the big stage, the eight aforementioned Orcadians comprising The Chair – whose star’s been rapidly on the rise since they won an Open Stage award at last year’s Celtic Connections – achieved a similarly heady, tight-knit synergy, allied to all the heavyweight force generated by a line-up of twin fiddles, accordion, banjo, guitar, bass, drums, percussion and vocals.

The roars of appreciation from the weekend’s biggest crowd were deafening from the very first number, and only grew louder as the band paraded their exuberant, imaginatively arranged mix of Celtic, Balkan, reggae, blues, rockabilly and Scandinavian styles.

Irish small-town heroes The Saw Doctors were a sure-fire choice for Friday night’s main headliner, serendipitously continuing the Chilli Pipers’ theme – albeit with the humour aptly cranked up further – by arriving onstage to the sound of the Star Trek theme, before launching into their original and still best-loved hit, ‘I Useta Love Her’.

Playing this prime slot at this prime festival, to this ultra-primed and up-for-it audience, some bands have attained truly sublime heights of inspiration – which couldn’t quite be said of The Saw Doctors, who seemed essentially to be working the crowd as they would any other.

That said, these virtuosos of the feelgood vibe work a crowd with rare enthusiasm, dedication and effectiveness, here firing out the hooky, heartwarming, singalong anthems for a good two hours, Davy Carton’s soulful, passionate lead vocals soaring forth with the same disarming conviction as ever. They may have done the business rather than risen to the occasion, but you certainly couldn’t fault them for graft.

It’s arguable that buff pin-up stars who excite teenage girls to the point of squealing semi-hysteria can only be a good thing for folk music, given its past prevailing associations with resolutely ungroomed middle-aged men. Judging by his Saturday-night performance in the big tent, it would be about the only good thing Seth Lakeman is doing for folk music just now.

For this listener, his signature sound thus far has been startlingly samey, given the hype he has attracted, superficially catchy though those scissoring fiddle grooves and bright, urgent vocals might be. Suchlike earlier material, however, sounded almost fresh and edgy beside the tracks from his new album Poor Man’s Heaven, which ranged from bland country-folk to downright pop pap, palpably reflecting the Faustian bargain he’s signed with EMI imprint Relentless.

The emphatic Mockney accent didn’t help his credibility – hardly the most natural idiolect for an ex-public schoolboy from Devon – but ultimately it was the cold, autopilot efficiency with which he delivered his goods that left the crowd substantially unmoved.

Praise be that we could depend on Shooglenifty – as the clock ticked towards the Sabbath – to round off proceedings with all the genuine warmth and fire, wit and originality, relish of the moment and spirit of adventure that anyone could wish for.

The final icing on the Heb Celt cake nowadays is the late-night festival club at An Lanntair, which in its third year of operation there seemed very happily settled in, leaving aside a certain rabbit-in-the-headlights tendency among the (initially) fresh-faced bar staff at the insatiable intensity of the onslaught.

As well as providing for a late-night drink and a catch-up with the day’s gossip, the club stages extra slots by most of the billed festival acts, and a few more besides. Four Men and a Dog, The Chair and Shooglenifty all whipped it up all over again in the wee hours following their main-stage shows, while other bonus treats included short but compellingly sweet sets from Saltfishforty, Karine Polwart, Bodega and ex-Astrid singer-songwriter/sequencer Willie Campbell.

Thirteen years in, with a total annual attendance of around 15,000, the Heb Celt has acquired the atmosphere and attitude of a festival justly confident in its standing on the circuit, among both performers and audiences, offering an all-round quality of experience – from customer care through artist calibre to unforgettable location – that looks set to keep rallying its uniquely merry throng for years to come.

© Sue Wilson, 2008

Links

• Hebridean Celtic Festival
• Heb Celt 2008 Picture Gallery

PETER URPETH chatted with the Lewis-born fiddle maestro back on home ground for the Hebridean Celtic Festival

I CAUGHT UP with Alasdair in a quiet corner of Stornoway’s An Lanntair arts centre some hours after Alasdair’s gig with Calum Alex MacMillan at the festival [see review]. He began by describing their tuition as youngsters on the island.

“As young lads we had both been taught by the piper Iain Morrison from Back, and Calum was a year above me in School [the Nicolson Institute, Stornoway]. When it came to music at school we were at a different level in terms of the stage of our development to a lot of the other students, and so we were allowed to go off to a small room on our own, known as The Cupboard, and we’d go in there and play the chanters and basically have the craic and while away the time playing tunes.”

Whilst Alasdair White’s raise to the mighty ranks of the Battlefield Band has been much covered, Calum Alex MacMillan of Point was born into a house full of Gaelic music, being the son of Seonaidh MacMillan, lead singer with the influential Gaelic band The Lochies. At the age of 18 he won the gold medal at the Mod and went on to win the equally prestigious Sean Nos competition at the Pan Celtic Festival. I wondered if their different routes through the maze of pathways in Gaelic music since leaving school had changed the music they played as young lads?

Island music is always in flux, because of the nature of islands and of island communities

“Well, Calum’s open enough, talented enough and intelligent enough to expand on that. He is also a member of the band Daimh, and in many ways he is the perfect singer to have in a band like that because he is not precious about singing, it is just something that he does. It is very natural, intrinsic, and he has no axe to grind in that respect! When we were rehearsing for the gig today, we were concerned that we might be doing too much of this or that, but when it comes to it, the music is what it is.”

It is very exciting, I suggest, to hear so many male Gaelic singers like Calum Alex at the Heb Celtic Festival.

“The Heb Celtic Festival is almost unique in its focus on that. This year, apart from us you’ve had Mary Ann Kennedy & Na Seoid, and there was last year’s opening concert with the focus on Murdo MacFarlane. No slights on the other performers, at that concert last year – everyone there was outstanding – but I remember very clearly the Calum Alec / Fraser Fifield performance of Murdo MacFarlane’s ‘Tobair Tobair Sìolaidh’.

All the way through the concert you were going ‘that was good that, that worked nicely’, but there was one point in the concert where the hairs on the back of your neck stood up! The male voice in Gaelic song is such an important one. It can be incredibly powerful, and very poignant and it has been overlooked an awful lot, but not so much now, and that is largely because there are so many great exponents.”

Has the fact that the male voice has been somewhat overlooked anything, I ponder, to do with new trends in the marketing of Gaelic music.

“Well the marketing is inevitable. If you are in a position where you have to get yourself gigs and you have to try to sell a band, then its inevitable, and there’s no harm in that. I think it is a good thing that a lot of the girls are very good singers, especially in that it might bring people to the music who would not normally listen to it, and they go on to find music that they might not usually listen to.

“I mean, Julie Fowlis has made a great break through. She’s working with a great record company, they’ve really kind of pushed her and she’s working really hard and that’s brilliant because it has taken a lot of people into the music, and that’s all you can hope for.”

Sitting as we were in the shiny new facilities of An Lanntair, at the evening ceilidh of a music festival that brings thousands out to hear music in Stornoway, I asked Alasdair how his upbringing on the island had influenced his playing?

“When you’re learning your instrument you do go through a number of stages in terms of your influences and your development. When I started, I started off playing classically, but then my teacher, Ian Dick, left the island and I was for a while, left to my own devices musically.

“But then Jackie Nicol and Douglas Leadbetter helped me and encouraged me, and kept me on the right track with tuning and fingering, and that kept me going. After that I got help in traditional music from Ian Crichton and Jimmy Budge. Jimmy was a member of the Sawmill Band and he was just full of music. They were two huge figures in my musical upbringing, and in music in the island.

“Iain Morrison was my piping instructor and I got so much off of him just in terms of playing pipe tunes. You hear things about piping tutors being ogres, but Iain Morrison was the best piper in his day – there can be no doubt about that. Iain gave me piper Allan MacDonald’s The Moidart Collection, which is a classic collection that I still get tunes out of today, and it was great to learn those things from these masters of island music. I was so privileged to learn from them.”

Is there, though, a distinctive island style of fiddle playing that he had picked up on as a young lad?

“Island music is always in flux, because of the nature of islands and of island communities. Island communities are always in a constant state of transition. When it comes to a fiddle style I would tentatively say that there is one developing. Again I’m sure that there was one at one time but it got decimated through the clearances, the two world wars and so on.

“The only reason that piping got going again was because of the military and that’s why piping is now so strong. In terms of the fiddle style, I think total credit has to go to the likes of Donald Loudy MacLeod – he taught the boys who now organise the Taransay Fiddle Festival, and that has contributed so much to the islands’ musical identity.”

“For a Lewis style, then you’d have to extrapolate that from the singing and from the piping. For instance, there was a set of puirt a beul that we played at the end of the concert today and that is as close as you will get to a true ‘island’ style. To get that style you’ve got to hone in on the way that the people used to sing, especially the puirt a beul, because that was the way they had of preserving the tunes, you’ve also got to look at the whole area of ‘vocables’.

“You’ve also got to look at the piping style – and there is a distinct west coast style and a Hebridean piping style, which was very much influenced by Donald MacLeod and by Iain Morrison as well.

“There are certain things in that style – an example is the way that we play the tune ‘Major Morrison of Ballantrushal’ – such as the fact that you don’t ‘cut’ notes as much as some other players, and there are not so many cuts and dots, they are not so pronounced, and the music is played a bit more open.”

© Peter Urpeth, 2008

Links

• Alasdair White

Sail Hebrides event (photo - Norman Chalmers).

WELL COVES an blones, I’m looking across SY hoil the now and you’re seeing it [if you are lost already, see below – Ed]. A dead Saturday. OK there’s still a few trucks and bits of cloth and steel but the portaloos have gone to some other event and the show is over.

I was born a street back from Stornoway harbour and now live right across from the fishmarket, looking to the Castle Grounds. All that Opium money (in to Lewis via the Matheson-Jardine empire) lies under a big grass slope which hosts the annual Hebridean Celtic Festival.

I remember Caroline (still Festival Director) and Fiona and Nan and Murdo (Chair for all these years) dreaming up the idea. What this Island needs is….. Better start small – well maybe not…. So it didn’t start small but it’s massive now. That’s staying power.

There’s a huge influx of visitors but a lot of us locals will make sure we’re here for the duration. One week ago we were all recovering from Friday and looking forward to the big last night. Some of us were also sailing by day in the Sail Hebrides Festival which runs parallel to the music.

There’s two main strands. The tent is a wild party. I’ve seen some great performers thrown by the sheer noise-level. Quiet Islanders aren’t. Urban Lewis people are maybe a shade louder, but there’s a throaty harmonic from the out-of-town accent, with a bit more nasal twang.

For me, that kombo is music already, usually noisier than the visitors from New York, Greece or any of the other nationalities you bumped into in the tent. On the train to Glasgow, gabbing with a bloke I hardly know but from SY, a Glasgow guy says to me, Hell’s teeth, you Lewis people can talk. If yous are no talking yer on the phone to each other. We’re just fek’n amateurs.

The other strand is a composite of satellite events. Venues are widespread, but the An Lanntair arts centre has become a key one. The emphasis is on strong links with Hebridean culture, often contemporary and with musical interplay which demands more concentration and less pulse-driven response from its audience.

I’ve come round to thinking the Glasgow guy’s right. But even in the tent, the audience chills for the right performers. The events will be covered in more detail on this site but I’m just going to give a hip-shot volley now.

From the water, tying up a Norse rowing boat, I was trusted to skipper for the occasion, the tones of Berroguetto filtered through. A gentler melodic start before Moving Hearts. (But I think Norwegian music should be considered Celtic for next year.)

I got under the canvas for the latter mob of rocky folk superstars regrouped, but the place didn’t jump. The sax was haunting, sure enough, but the whole thing was just too laid back. I like restrained craft in most art but the crowd wanted to get moving. I thought of my mother’s phrase, “wouldn’t set the heather alight” and that was the concensus. And a lot of folk preferred the first band.

Whereas…… on Saturday. The rich grass moved. Our own Divas, collectively kent as Blas, sang their hearts out, in a brave attempt to bring that fine strand out and into the main party. But then Oojami birled. It sounds corny – belly-dancing and whirling dervishes but the music was driving and inventive together.

And the Peatbogs built on the pace. The Skye-based Faeries are HebCelt favourites but they took it even further to full-on bounce mode. The brass section did not one whit of harm that I could notice and it all came together to a proper climax.

The word was that the Festival club sessions didn’t quite reach the high octane reds desired by the people of the night, but the Star Inn was jumping with solid standard session free for all stuff.

But for me the musical height was in An Lanntair on Friday. Nuala Kennedy’s New Shoes band were continually inventive, and allowed drive and flair within what seemed to be a conventional line-up. The melodeon in these hands was a driving force but the voice, flutes, fiddles and guitar listened to each other and engaged in conversation.

Same could be said for the accordian, fiddle, singing and guitar work in Lau, who perfectly offset the first act. The energy was never out of control, never dissipated, served its musical purpose. Again, the remarkable thing is the dialogue. In that sense, for me, these two acts, though you might call both contemporary folk music, had more in common with jazz than that particular performance of the huge musicianship gathered in Moving Hearts.

For those not au fait with Stornoway-speak, Ian has kindly provided the following glossary in “my native tongue”:

cove – male of species
blone –  female (nothing to do with hair colour)
SY – Stornoway, metropolis of Outer Hebrides
hoil –  SY harbour and environs

© Ian Stephen, 2007

Links

• Hebridean Celtic Festival

Associated Page

• Sue Wilson review

Irish legends, Moving Hearts.

NOT SO very long ago, the concept of Stornoway en fête would have seemed a peculiarly Scottish oxymoron. Being the hub of Free Presbyterianism’s doughtiest remaining bastion, the Western Isles’ capital wasn’t exactly renowned as a destination for fun.

Now, though, for a few days each July, the hedonistic buzz on the bunting-decked street is instantly palpable, even arriving with the advance guard off the Wednesday ferry, for the opening night of the Hebridean Celtic Festival.

With a total audience this year in the region of 15,000 – including a hefty local contingent – Stornoway’s population pretty much doubles for the duration: nigh-on every bed in town is booked up weeks in advance. Visitors are drawn from far and wide by a combination of world-class music (both home-grown and local), island remoteness, and a setting rich in natural and historical treasures.

It’s a big ask, nonetheless, getting people to travel all that way, especially in these days of ever-increasing competition from other Scottish festivals, and the Heb Celt’s continuing success bears witness to its organisers’ skill and judgement in making the experience so addictive.

The warmest of Hebridean welcomes is underpinned by carefully cultivated support from local businesses, be they pubs or craft-shops or car-hire firms, all of whom share in the dividends brought by a free-spending festival crowd. Among the various street performers dodging the showers around Stornoway over the weekend, there was even a pair of Christian buskers, giving praise for the happiness so abundantly in evidence.

There’s apparently been some debate of late as to whether the festival should drop the “Celtic” from its name, and broaden its programming to include more mainstream acts. While the desire among its younger indigenous audience to see more of their favourite bands come to Lewis is understandable, it’s not as if the event currently struggles to attract this age-group; far from it.

More importantly, though, it’s the Celtic element that underpins Lewis’s role not merely as a festival site for a bunch of concerts that could equally well be staged elsewhere, but as an actively participatory host, whose own living traditions vitally inform and shape the event, and are thereby connected to their cultural cousins around the world.

This core aspect of the Heb Celt’s identity was powerfully exemplified by Wednesday’s opening concert at An Lanntair. Dhachaigh! (“Home”) was a specially-commissioned tribute marking 25 years since the death of the great Lewis bard Murchadh MacPhàrlain (Murdo MacFarlane), whose work is more widely embedded in today’s Gaelic canon than that of any other author.

Backed by supplementary funding from Highland 2007 and Bòrd Na Gàidhlig, the performance lined up five leading exponents of Gaelic song – Lewis natives Ishbel MacAskill, Christine Primrose, Calum Alex MacMillan and Fiona Mackenzie, plus Irish-born Brian Ó hEadhra – alongside fiddlers Aidan O’Rourke and Alasdair White, Fraser Fifield on whistles and soprano sax, and Ó hEadhra also playing guitar.

Both halves of the show opened with a stirringly evocative musical and visual collage by Paul Mounsey, the Brazilian-based Scottish composer and experimentalist, projecting snapshots of Lewis life and landscapes from yesteryear to the present over a recorded aural backdrop of ambient electronica, folk-based melodies and snatches of MacFarlane’s poetry.

Also created especially for the occasion was Fifield’s stunning arrangement of “Tobair, Tobair, Sìolaidh” (“Well, Well, Flow”), the bard’s prayer for rain during dry summers [doubtless the irony will not have been lost on the locals in this far from dry specimin – Ed.], interweaving MacMillan’s resonant vocals with an eerie, whistle-based backing track and live sax improvisation to brilliantly dramatic effect, at once wild and ritualistic.

The jazz influences contributed by Fifield were subtly picked up by other aspects of the performances, as with the sensual bluesy inflections that enriched MacAskill’s lower register in her opening a capella rendition of “An Ataireachd Ard,” (“The Swelling of the Sea”).

Mackenzie’s exquisitely bittersweet soprano in the pastoral ode “Gleann Gollaidh” (“Glen Golly”), meanwhile, was vividly reminiscent of traditional Appalachian singing, in a further pointer to Gaelic song’s transatlantic connections.

Both these songs were among those by other writers chosen to complement MacFarlane’s work, all elaborating on this year’s festival theme of homecoming, in an adroitly varied mixed of solo and ensemble numbers, some featuring voice alone, others imaginatively accompanied by the band.

Other standouts included MacAskill singing MacFarlane’s heartrending World War I lament “Naoi Ceud Deug `Sa Caithir Deug” (“Nineteen Hundred and Fourteen”), and Mackenzie’s impassioned leading of Lewis’s “national anthem”, “Eilean Fraoich” (“Heather Isle”). For those not fortunate to be present for its premiere, there are moves afoot to tour the show, and hopefully to record it.

While the biggest draw on this year’s Heb Celt bill was undoubtedly the Proclaimers, of whom more later, the biggest coup was securing the sole UK festival date by Irish legends Moving Hearts, following their reunion shows in Dublin back in February, the latest in only a handful of occasions when they’ve reconvened since parting ways in 1984.

The Hearts’ trailblazing swansong, of course, was the all-instrumental album ‘The Storm’, material from which formed the basis of this year’s performances, featuring Donal Lunny (bouzouki), Davy Spillane (uilleann pipes/whistles), Keith Donald (saxophones) Eoghan O’Neill (bass) and Noel Eccles (percussion) from the original cast. Completing a truly powerhouse line-up, at Thursday’s opening show in the festival’s main tented arena, were Kevin Glackin (fiddle), Anto Drennan (guitar), Graham Henderson (keyboards) and Liam Bradley (drums).

“Seminal” is a much overused word, but listening to the band’s big, multi-textured, polyrhythmic sound, it was immediately obvious how they paved the way for Capercaillie, Mike McGoldrick and other contemporary Celtic acts, splicing traditional-style tunes with assertive jazz, rock and funk stylings in a manner that still sounded fresh and vital, while once again underlining its revelatory impact first time around.

The night’s opening act, Berrogüetto, also turned in a fine performance, bringing the sunny, spicy, splendidly strutting sounds of 21st century Galicia to an appreciative Heb Celt crowd, alternating intricately layered tune sets with the superbly commanding voice of lead singer Gaudi Galego.

Friday night may have marked the Proclaimers’ debut appearance at the festival, but the homecoming theme was nonetheless unmistakably apt at an emotional level, as a euphoric welcoming roar affirmed their place in the audience’s hearts. The Reid brothers returned the favour with a thrillingly heartfelt performance, featuring a mix of mass-singalong classics and newer material, tautly backed by a punchy four-piece band.

The sheer craft and calibre of the Proclaimers’ songwriting always shines through mostly clearly live, along with the power and precision of their closely-twinned vocals. The two-way cultural relationship addressed in their very first hit, “Letter From America”, with which they opened the set, has remained a bedrock of their music, with vintage Stateside influences often prominent again here, from doo-wop to Motown, seasoned in true Scottish style with equal parts salt and wry pawkiness.

The pre-gig anticipation, even by the Heb Celt’s enthusiastic standards, was sky-high, but rarely have I witnessed a crowd so rapturously satisfied.

The final night’s support act, Oojami, cooked up a positively global melting-pot of upfront dance sounds, in the process going down as many listeners’ favourite festival discovery. The group’s Turkish-born founder and frontman Necmi Cavli, now based in London as a DJ, draws on influences as diverse as Arabic folk, Sufi devotional music and Celtic fiddle tunes, as well as ska, reggae and clubland grooves, with costumed dancers adding a flamboyant visual dimension to the show.

Rounding off yet another magical Heb Celt weekend in the big blue tent, Skye’s Peatbog Faeries celebrated the release of their fifth album, ‘What Men Deserve to Lose’, with a set that was by turns majestic and rumbustious, blissed-out and brooding, mesmerising and mighty.

The three-piece brass section, headed by ex-Elton John cohort Rick Taylor on trombone, and now a permanent feature of their live line-up, lent their already widescreen sound yet more layers of colour and depth, around the dynamic sparring partnership of fiddler Adam Sutherland and Peter Morrison on pipes and whistles, emphatically but nimbly backed by the heavy-duty rhythm team of bassist Innes Hutton and drummer Iain Copeland.

With a similarly successful An Lanntair programme including excellent performances by Lau, Quebecois trio Genticorum and Shetland fiddler Jenna Reid, and the late-night Festival Club thronged throughout till the wee hours, few if anyone noticed that this year’s festival Friday fell on the 13th. And even though the same supposedly ill-starred number will attach to the next Heb Celt, the event’s prospects – based on achievements thus far – could scarcely be brighter.

© Sue Wilson, 2007

Links

• Hebridean Celtic Festival

Associated Page

• Ian Stephen review

Dòchas.

AFTER THE RAIN-DRENCHED but nonetheless heady triumph of last year’s tenth birthday celebrations, topped by the heavyweight pulling-power of Van Morrison and Runrig, the Hebridean Celtic Festival entered its second decade in mighty fine fettle.

The numbers may have been slightly down on 2005’s complete sellout, but 14,000-odd punters over the weekend, including a hefty international contingent, is still a commanding tally by anyone’s standards.

The sun shone, and the sweet music of ringing tills resounded through Stornoway and beyond for four straight days and nights: indisputably a sound for sore ears in these parts, and a fundamental plank of the festival’s success, especially in light of local Presbyterian sensibilities.

In Scotland’s most economically marginal community of its size, thousands of extra visitors are hard to oppose, especially when they spend as freely as festival-goers generally do, and when their presence is also helping to preserve and promote the island’s precious Gaelic heritage – another vital weapon in the Heb Celt’s armoury.

Though its organisers have always thought global as regards main headline acts, it’s been implicit in their agenda from the outset that Lewis is inviting the world to come and play from a position of cultural strength. While islanders benefit in multiple ways from the annual festival influx, it’s therefore a healthily mutual process.

An Lanntair (is) an emphatically contemporary, assertively stylish embodiment of the event’s far-reaching importance to its home community

Gaelic artists were more strongly to the fore than ever among this year’s line-up, right from the sellout opening concert featuring an array of local divas – Màiri Smith, Alyth McCormack, Anna Murray and the three Mackenzie sisters – at Stornoway’s splendidly swank new An Lanntair arts centre.

Neighbouring North Uist star Julie Fowlis captivated another capacity crowd at the same venue the next night, after a fine first-half set from Bodega, a scarily youthful Highland and Islands five-piece who are current holders of the prestigious Radio 2 Young Folk Award, fronted by the potent singing of Lewis native Norrie MacIver.

The vibrancy of the younger Gaelic generation was further underlined by Teine, an all-girl quartet also from Lewis, whose beautifully blended harmonies, original songwriting and imaginative arrangements won them a string of enthusiastic ovations during the festival, although their instrumental playing needs considerable work to match the vocals.

An Lanntair itself marks an important new chapter in the Heb Celt’s development, not only as a major addition to its physical infrastructure, further widening its appeal to both artists and audiences, but as an emphatically contemporary, assertively stylish embodiment of the event’s far-reaching importance to its home community.

Obviously, An Lanntair’s not just there for the festival, but it wouldn’t be here at all without it. And while a few folk waxed nostalgic about the old days in the British Legion, such voices were overwhelmingly drowned by the hundreds of happy revellers thronging the new building for the nightly post-gig Festival Club, which created a much more palpable, pulsing heart to the festival than was possible before.

A certain amount of tweaking is needed as to how the space is deployed for the club, but the fabric itself proved amply conducive.

The aforementioned Ms Fowlis had a busy weekend of it, with several solo gigs around the island, as the festival’s mix of main-house shows, community concerts and family events continues to expand outwith Stornoway. She then stepped up to the big marquee stage, in the leafy grounds of Lews Castle, for a sterling Saturday-night set with her bandmates in Dòchas, admirably warming up the crowd for the Afro Celt Sound System.

The latter band were one of several for whom the close cousinship between Scottish and Irish Gaels lent their encounter with Lewis an extra depth of resonance. The multi-national Afro Celts line-up nowadays includes the brilliant young uilleann piper and flute player Emer Mayock, as well as longtime anchorman Iarla Ó Lionáird, whose magisterial, sean nós-accented singing commanded the vast interior space of the “Big Blue” – as the main festival tent is nicknamed – with sublime authority.

These hypnotic slower vocal numbers were just one dimension in a truly electrifying set, rhythmically and visually centred on the fearsomely athletic interplay between dhol drummer Johnny Kalsi and Senegal’s Moussa Sissokho, on djembe and talking drum. Tunes-wise, Mayock’s playing laid a muscular, lyrical foundation, abetted by some blistering whistle solos from founder member James McNally.

The heights of mass delirium whipped up by the Afro Celts matched those achieved three years ago by the Hothouse Flowers, who returned to headline Friday night’s show after a superb opening set from Blazin’ Fiddles.

For Liam O Maonlai and his men, though, that last time on Lewis was one of those rare, magical, transcendent nights when everything comes together, and then some, and while that’s precisely why the band were avid to come back, it’s an experience impossible to recreate on demand.

While they certainly didn’t play a bad gig, Fiachra O Braonain’s over-earnest attempt at a slow Gaelic ballad, solely and jarringly accompanied by O Maonlai on didgeridoo, served as a somewhat painful emblem of their struggles to attain that same level of communion with the audience.

Among the weekend’s other highlights were the Orkney twosome Saltfishforty, who won themselves a whole heap of new friends with their raw-boned yet precision-honed mesh of traditional-style tunes and gritty Americana textures, further enlivened by the odd east European flourish.

Featuring Brian Cromarty on vocals, mandola and guitar, with fiddler Douglas Montgomery, their mostly self-penned music exemplified the ability of the very best duos to sound like more than the sum of their parts – as the pack of dancers giving it large when they played the club on Friday would readily attest.

Extending the programme’s transatlantic strand were current hot property the Crooked Jades, a San Francisco-based quintet (though all originally from the Appalachian heartland of Kentucky and North Carolina) who seek to recapture the ghostly spirit of pre-radio US folk music, and align it with the darkly postmodern sensibilities of Jacques Brel and Nick Cave.

It’s a beguiling, compelling, intriguingly understated mix, enhanced by subtle stagecraft, vintage-chic clothes and antique instruments. Enhanced, too, on this occasion, by the awareness that some of these very same songs and tunes probably began life pretty much right where we were sitting, several hundred years later.

© Sue Wilson, 2006

Link

• Hebridean Celtic Festival

SUSAN SZYMBORSKI: This summer I was extremely privileged to win a competition to be a reviewer at the Hebridean Celtic Festival. But setting out for Lewis, I was nervous on more than one account. Not only was I being propelled into the sky in a somewhat rickety plane, I was also being launched into a music scene I knew little about.

I needn’t have worried. This inclusive festival had something for everyone, be it Celtic Rock, Punk or Reggae, and I came away raving about almost every gig. Two performances in particular seized my attention.

Scottish band Bodega have an impressive C.V. The young five-piece first met and began playing together in 2005 at the National Centre of Excellence in Traditional Music in Plockton. Winning the prestigious BBC Radio 2 Young Folk Award 2006, the band enjoyed a meteoric rise. Since then they have had a hectic schedule touring, recording their debut album (due out in August) and continuing their musical education.

Watching Bodega set up for a live radio set at Stornoway’s Woodlands Centre Café, it was difficult to match this reputation with the subdued teens. Even June Naylor, the band’s quiet and polite clarasach player expressed surprise at the band’s stellar success, exclaiming of the Young Folk Awards, “I don’t know how we did it, but we managed to win.”

This forward looking festival is as happy nurturing up-and-coming local talent as it is celebrating daring international acts

Their fingers were lightening-fast, their voices harmonised beautifully and their performance seemed to be note perfect. Lead singer, Lewis’s Norrie MacIver, was particularly memorable, with a mature, powerful voice and hilarious banter!

There was much audience participation and the fact that the band broke no less than two strings is testament to the sheer fun of the evening. More than this though, Bodega’s approach to traditional music is exciting. It has an edge which has to be seen to be understood. And if there is any justice, people will see them. These guys deserve to be bigger than Franz Ferdinand!

The Crooked Jades by comparison, are a well-established American act from San Francisco, having appeared in the soundtrack of the George Clooney movie, ‘Oh Brother Where Art Thou.’ They describe themselves as “old-time revivalists,” playing a range of instruments from fiddles to banjos in the style of rural American settler music from the 1900’s.

Placing their gig in the South of Harris then, was an organisational masterstroke. The band came face to face with some of the traditions they so fervently laud. As one local commented, “they certainly fit in here with their flat tweed caps!”

Their music, however, also includes an interesting modern twist. They openly reject bland commercial music, valuing instead “the beauty of difference.” This is evident in their off-kilter rhythms, unusual lyrics, flattened, sliding notes and, of course, the initial adjective in their name.

Although the small audience seemed initially bemused about what to make of this quirky act, a strong, appreciative bond developed between the two camps by the end of the night. A bond, which given the brilliant match of music, values and venue, seemed wholly inevitable.

These acts are perfect examples of the beauty of the Heb Celt Fest. This forward looking festival is as happy nurturing up-and-coming local talent as it is celebrating daring international acts. A fantastic festival, which easily captured my imagination.

SARAH HUNTER: It was two smaller yet in no way less talented groups that were to be the highlight of my festival experience. Saltfishforty and Mauvais Sort play music which remains true to its Celtic roots but is enriched with more contemporary influences.

Saltfishforty consists of two lads who met at school in Orkney. Enemies at first – something to do with a rather dirty game of football – their friendship was borne of a mutual interest in music; traditional Celtic tunes as well as rock and blues.

When Brian Cromarty (guitar and mandolin) and Douglas Montgomery (fiddle) stepped onto the stage in An Lanntair – Stornoway’s fantastic new arts centre – I was expecting something of the quiet, mellow variety. I was thrilled to be proved wrong; this little band is all about big music.

Mauvais Sort also belted out big beats. However, as a six piece featuring accordion, violin, guitar, bass, mandolin, drums, percussion, feet, and voice this was to be expected.

Driven by a love of traditional Quebec music they formed six years ago and have since achieved international success with their three albums. The music is recognisably Celtic with the accordion and fiddle playing an important role but there is an undeniable indie-rock sound about their work which perhaps shouldn’t work, but does.

They seemed undaunted by the huge stage in the marquee or the crowd of thousands, instead they revelled in both.

The experience was one of high drama. The intense explosive music stirred the crowd – many of whom knew little about the band – and they jumped and danced about madly, displaying the traditional two fingered rock salute.

Mauvais Sort worked hard to create this fantastic atmosphere, the drummer ran down to embrace the cheering crowd, the lead singer told us the story behind each song and even got us to join in at one point: “We drink! Drink! Drink! We drink not often!” we sang loudly in French, or at least as close an approximation as we could manage.

For me, the best music conjures up images and emotions, taking me back in time or into a world unknown; both Saltfishforty and Mauvais Sort managed this with apparent ease.

Saltfishforty excel in surprising the uninitiated listener. On announcing a tune called ‘Beef n Tatties’ I expected a traditional Scottish song as comforting as the dish it was named for. Instead the fast and furious sound that followed evoked in me wild and feverish feelings as I was swept along by the music.

Mauvais Sort have the same skill. Their music – eclectic, electric and always in French – has an ominous, mysterious quality that awakens something a little dark inside, something that would cause chaos if it wasn’t kept on a tight rein. Their name is incredibly fitting; Mauvais Sort means bad spell.

Both bands have an attitude that is a little tongue in cheek. At one point Mauvais Sort donned wigs and got the audience to copy disco moves reminiscent of that classic musical, ‘Grease’. Saltfishforty played an amusing little ditty – ‘The Breadbin Blues’ – where the line “Oh well it’s too early, I need some tea and toast” no doubt struck a chord with most of those listening.

These are musicians that innovate where others imitate; their work excites and inspires people. These are musicians with real talent who know how to use it. These are musicians you should see.

(Read more of Susan and Sarah’s work on the festival website – see link below)

© Susan Szymborski and Sarah Hunter, 2006

Link

• Hebridean Celtic Festival

JULIE FOWLIS has had a bit of a roller-coaster year since we last spoke to her early in 2005. Northings catches up with the Dingwall-based Gaelic singer as she prepares for this month’s Hebridean Celtic Festival in Stornoway

WHEN JULIE FOWLIS was announced as the winner of the prestigious BBC Radio 2 New Horizon Award 2006 at the BBC Folk Awards, it came as a pleasant surprise to a lot of people, not least the recipient herself. It was an unprecedented recognition not only for the young singer, but for Gaelic song itself.

Picking up the Gaelic Singer of the Year Award at the Scots Traditional Music Awards in December was a bit more of a predictable win for the North Uist-bred, Dingwall-based singer. Julie is a graduate of the Applied Music degree course at Strathclyde University, and a member of the highly-regarded young band Dòchas, where she plays pipes, whistle, and occasionally oboe or cor anglais as well as singing. She released her debut solo album last year to considerable acclaim.

Northings: Julie, we opened our last interview with you be saying that you had been very busy – I guess that has accelerated in the wake of the BBC award?

Julie Fowlis: Absolutely – things have taken off a bit, so I’m not spending much time at home. It was a real honour to receive that award, and I was really chuffed to win it. It was a great night as well, with lots of celebrities from the folk scene there.

I’ve done Heb Celt quite a few times, and it is possibly my favourite festival in the whole world. It has such a great vibe, and you are always incredibly well looked after when you are there

N: When did you know you had been nominated?

JF: I heard around November or thereabouts, I think, and I didn’t expect that at all. It was a shock just to get that far, and people at the time were saying to me, well, it’s a big thing to be nominated in itself, but don’t get your hopes up too high for actually winning it. I was really looking forward just to going down and seeing it all, because it is a big event and quite exciting in its own right.

N: Is it fair to say you took them at their word and didn’t go expecting to win?

JF: A little bit beforehand I was asked to perform at the ceremony, and that was bit of a worry – playing for that audience has to be one of the most daunting gigs imaginable. As a result I was so worried about performing that I hadn’t really thought much about the award itself, and needless to say, hadn’t prepared a single word to say.

N: Nothing at all?

JF: Not a word. I remember thinking afterwards why didn’t I give it even five minutes of thought, just in case! I started talking in Gaelic to give me time to decide what I was going to say that everyone there would understand.

N: Obviously you didn’t know in advance of the announcement even on the night?

JF: No, nothing at all until that moment. They make up the awards as a replica of the person who is getting it, and they are all sitting on stage there under wraps, so you can’t see them until they are presented. It looks very cool.

N: How significant is that award proving to be?

JF: I can’t really explain how much it has meant in terms of work. I’m being asked now to go and play concerts at places I’ve never been invited to before, lots of them in England, and even beyond. There is a huge status attached to these awards, and people do take notice of them, even if they don’t know much about you. In terms of the mainstream folk audience, Gaelic singing is fairly out on the edge, and this has been such a useful thing in encouraging people to be open to it and give it a chance.

N: In that sense it is a big win for Gaelic song as well as for yourself, isn’t it?

JF: Massive. I didn’t really realise that at the time – it has only been since that it has become obvious to me. I think the whole thing really started when I got the chance to play one of the showcase slots at the Cambridge Folk Festival last summer. There are only five or six of these, and you play not only for the public audience, but also for lots of agents and promoters and record labels and so on. A lot of people saw me then, and it started to take on a bit of a snowball effect, and I think that helped with the BBC award.

N: A lot has now been said in the wake of the award about you being the first Gaelic crossover star and so on – has it left you feeling a bit of a weight on shoulders?

JF: I’d be lying if I said I didn’t feel a bit of pressure, especially in respect of the next album, but basically I don’t but into any of that. I have always just done what I do, and never tried to be anything I’m not, and that won’t change.

N: Do you get a sense of a new audience opening up for Gaelic song?

JF: I would say that is definitely happening. I reckon at every gig I play now people come up to me afterwards and say they have never heard Gaelic singing before but they really enjoyed it, and it didn’t matter that they didn’t understand the language. I always try and tell people what the songs are about, so that even if they can’t follow the words, they know the story and the sentiment behind it.

N: I guess the thing now is for some of the other young Gaelic singers to take that on and push forward in the way you have done?

JF: Absolutely, and there is so much music out there to do that with. In my own case I have been very lucky to get the opportunities I have had, but it is down to hard work as well, and getting out there and playing as much as possible.

N: You mentioned that difficult second album earlier – where are you with that?

JF: I’m getting the music together, and I’m nearly there with that. I’m hoping to record at the end of the summer, and get the record out at the beginning of next year. I’ve gathered pretty much all of the material I’m going to use, and that is the hardest part for me. From there it’s a case of grabbing the musicians I want and trying to find dates where everyone can make it into the studio at the right time, which is a major challenge in itself.

N: Is the focus going to be on songs from Uist again?

JF: A lot of the songs are Uist-based, yes, with a couple of songs from other islands and the mainland. They are often songs I get from friends and family at home.

N: How about accompaniment this time?

JF: I felt on the last one we had a good mix of scaled-down numbers with bigger scale ones, and I’ll probably be looking to do that again, but it will be essentially an acoustic album. I like to be able to reproduce what we do on the record when we go on stage – recording projects are about different things, and maybe at some point I will want to take a different kind of approach, but on this one I want to do it the way we would do it live.

N: Have you had more time to prepare this one?

JF: Definitely. On the first album it was all a bit hit-and-miss. We hadn’t gigged any of the material, and it was really something I wanted to do as a recording project, rather than something that I intended to tour. When it took off a little bit and I started getting a lot of gigs for it, it was only then that we were able to start developing a live sound and feel for the music, and I would like to capture that on the new record.

N: Do you feel that audiences, especially those new to Gaelic music, need to have that more contemporary accompanied feel, rather than straight unaccompanied singing?

JF: In many ways I do, yes. People can be really impressed by unaccompanied Gaelic singing, but I think there is a question about how you get them to come and hear that? Instrumental accompaniment can maybe give them a way into it, and from there they will move on to other artists and other approaches to the music. I usually do a couple of unaccompanied songs in a set, though, and people do respond very well to it. Whatever the accompaniment, though, I feel very strongly about not changing the songs – I don’t think you need to do that to sell them.

N: How are things working out with dividing your time between your solo work and Dòchas?

JF: It’s only tricky on a diary basis. The group has always had problems with people juggling lots of other commitments, whether it be a full-time job or teaching or involvement in loads of other bands, so we are used to working round that. We had a really good run of gigs last year, and have been a bit quieter this year, but that was partly by choice. We are trying to plan further ahead now, and arrange runs of dates.

N: Is there a Dòchas album in the pipeline? I seem to recall you ended up making the last one in tandem with your own record?

JF: We are thinking about a new album as well, but I’m definitely trying to avoid ending up making both records at the same time again! That was a bit mad. We’re looking at recording toward the end of the year.

N: You are performing both solo and with Dòchas at the Hebridean Celtic Festival this month – is that an event you look forward to?

JF: I’ve done Heb Celt quite a few times, and it is possibly my favourite festival in the whole world. It has such a great vibe, and you are always incredibly well looked after when you are there. It’s a lovely event with lovely people running it, and I’m thrilled to be going for the whole week this year. It is very different from any of the other festivals.

N: You play oboe alongside your more customary folk instruments – I wonder if you had considered a career in classical music when you were at Strathclyde?

JF: I never actually considered a career in performing at all, to be honest. I found it so nerve-wracking as a student – it made me ill every time I had to do it. I definitely felt that I wanted to be involved in music, but probably in some kind of behind-the-scenes role. I don’t have any happy memories of performing when I was at University.

N: Is that how you came to work with Fèis Rois at one point?

JF: Yes, and that is what I planned to do. I was lucky to get a job with Fèis Rois working on traditional music development in schools around Ross-shire, but I was doing a few gigs here and there just to keep my hand in. I reached a point where I was gigging as much as my pals who were full-time musicians, and holding down a job as well. It was getting to be silly, not to say very bad for my health and sanity! I had to make a decision, and I stopped listening to my sensible side and plunged into the unknown!

N: I guess you haven’t done too badly, then – presumably you managed to overcome the fear factor?

JF: I still get nervous, but I can control it much better now!

© Kenny Mathieson, 2006

Links

• Julie Fowlis
• Hebridean Celtic Festival
  

Angus Grant of Shooglenifty

THE FINAL DAY of an already-legendary 10th Hebridean Celtic Festival arrives with a sense of relaxed merriness combined with hedonistic determination, a feeling eminently detectable throughout the audience gathering in the large ex-T in the Park tent for the last of this year’s festivities.

Some people attending the festival unfortunately are unable to stay for the Saturday night due to travel and work and so on, resulting in a slightly thinner crowd on that night.

Not that it is by any means a huge difference in attendance, there is still a profoundly sizeable throng (of at least 4,000 people) swarming expectantly in front of the stage, waiting to be entertained by Shooglenifty and their support, the Mark Saul band.

This means slightly more room for people to dance, which certainly benefits the most enthusiastic members of the audience.

First up is, for me at least, the surprise highlight of this festival: Australian bagpiping sensation Mark Saul with band. Featuring original compositions by Mark Saul, many from his new album ‘Mixolydian’, this was an unusual and spectacular gig. The musicianship of all members – on pipes, flute, guitar, fiddle and drums – is of the highest class, craftily complemented by diverse and well-suited samples.

Successfully merging their various instruments and electronica, each song is received with ecstatic enthusiasm by the soon won-over crowd. Their excellent music aside, this band owes a lot of its charm to their genuine, amiable and humble attitude, a trait that can only endear them even more to their listeners.

So tight and exhilarating is this gig, that to even ponder leaving the tent for a short while, thus potentially missing a song, is unthinkable.

Now continuing their tour of Scotland, I’m confident genial Mark Saul and his band will be getting used to this kind of reception.

Shooglenifty seem to have something of a cult following, but it’s obvious from the reaction of the crowd that this band appeals to one and all.

Shooglenifty’s music defies description, born out of Swamptrash, an Edinburgh psycho-bluegrass quintet from whence many of Shooglenifty’s present members herald, it has blended and fused more influences than you could list to create a sound that sends the audience reeling, jigging and jumping in a joyful frenzy.

The central, and certainly the most eye-catching, figure in the band is stupendous and eccentric fiddler Angus Grant, sporting a massive grey beard and an amicable glimmer in his eyes.

Shooglenifty seem to have something of a cult following, but it’s obvious from the reaction of the crowd that this band appeals to one and all. Towards the end of the gig, there is no end to the cheers and applause from the audience, and there is no way the fans are going to let any of the Shooglenifties go until they have performed a second encore!

The band happily obliges, and it is fitting that the last song the audience is treated to on this amazing tenth anniversary festival is ‘A Whisky Kiss’, a song that was previously played on the first ever HebCeltFest.

And so the festival comes to an end with yet another memorable gig. The tenth anniversary HebCelt festival has been universally acknowledged as the biggest and best yet. The festival now brings in over one and a half million pounds to the local economy, it sports two separate bars and four catering outlets, and besides showcasing the island’s beauty to visitors, it brings together the people of the island and music-lovers from all over the world.

The HebCeltFest is an exemplary music festival, and a source of pride to locals and far-off locals – i.e. visitors who fall in love with both festival and island alike.

© Kevin MacNeil, 2005

Runrig

DAY 3 OF the Hebridean Celtic Festival and the excitement is tangible even as we’re standing in the queue to enter the festival area. Last night’s gig featured Van Morrison and is already being spoken of in Lewis as A Truly Memorable Night. How will tonight compare?

Surrounding us are a mass of people from all over the world, most of them wearing Runrig t-shirts and/or sporting massive Scottish flags. These are the devoted fans – sorry, fanatics – of Gaeldom’s most famous musical export. They are here to have fun, and they mean business.

It’s impossible not to get caught up in the enthusiasm, which grows by the instant as we all congregate inside the tent.

Starting off the evening is the glorious arrival of the Lewis Pipe Band; moving and delighting the audience, the Pipe Band is a great opener, imbuing the audience with feelings of appreciation, pride and high exhilaration.

Now, while it’s clear from the fans that most of them are here to see Runrig, whose gigs in Lewis have always been memorable, the Peatbog Faeries are a huge success too. The Skye-based band played a much-appreciated concert at the festival last year (supporting The Saw Doctors), and thus many in the audience already knew what to expect – perhaps the reason for such a big turnout so early in the night.

The Faeries’ varied mix of eloquent piping, speedy fiddling, funky bass, lively brass dynamics and muscular percussion energises the audience no end. The band play quite a few songs from their new album, ‘Croftwork’, which means the gig is an equal treat for those fans who’d seen them last year.

The Peatbog Faeries’ gig is dance-inducing, hypnotic and, as is supremely evident from the audience’s reactions, very enjoyable indeed. One look at the crowd and it is obvious most of them are very much away with the Faeries – a fine old place to be!

With the audience now thoroughly roused, it’s time to await the arrival of Runrig onstage. The whole tent trembles with anticipation. The buzz grows by the minute and the audience can hardly contain themselves, bursting out into massive chants of ‘Run-rig! Run-rig! Run-rig!’ each time an unsuspecting roadie ventures onstage.

Indeed, every member of Runrig seems to give it all they have – perhaps none more so than the phenomenally talented guitarist Malcolm Jones.

The ensuing setlist consists of old classics and newer post-Munro material which seems to go down equally well. There is no disappointing this audience.

Agus ‘s beag an t-iongnadh. This gig is well prepared and thoroughly thought-through. The video projection screen is used to great advantage, occasionally screening powerful imagery – swelling seascapes, soaring eagles, old black-and-white footage of emigrants and soldiers – thus providing a strong visual accompaniment to the songs.

In a typically inspired gesture, there is also speeded up footage from a drive around night-time Stornoway. And when Malcolm Jones plays ‘Make Your Way to Stornoway’ in tribute to the locals, the whole tent explodes with joy.

Among the classics played are ‘The Greatest Flame’, ‘Alba’ and ‘Fichead Bliadhna’. Many of the older songs have been altered so that they differ subtly but appreciably from the album versions. Bruce Guthro has certainly made the feel of the band his own since bravely taking up the task of replacing Donnie Munro.

One difference from the usual set up on this gig is engendered by the fact that Rory MacDonald is unable to play bass due to a hand injury. Seemingly not taken back by this, he’s there to charm and enthuse, singing wholeheartedly and telling the crowd, ‘Hand or no hand, this is the place to be!’

Indeed, every member of Runrig seems to give it all they have – perhaps none more so than the phenomenally talented guitarist Malcolm Jones. I’ve always had a respect for his guitar playing, but seeing him play tonight’s concert leaves me in no doubt that he is a true virtuoso.

Don’t believe me? Watch the subtlety with which he plays, notice how he can play impromptu slide guitar without altering the tuning, listen to the way he makes complex guitar work seem easy. Ars est celare artem.

Coming back for encore after encore, the band themselves seem to enjoy playing in Stornoway almost as much as the audience enjoys having them.

The spirit of giving was in the air, the crowd gave Runrig seemingly unending applause and cheer and Runrig gave the fans a tremendous and awe-inspiring concert. It wasn’t a gig, it was just The Gig the packed crowd of 5,000 plus fans from forty different countries had hoped for.

© Kevin MacNeil, 2005

To the names due for review from this evening’s concert should be added the formation of Blas, a gathering of women traditional Gaelic singers performing new and specifically commissioned work for the Festival. However, your reviewer was stood half a mile from the tent waiting to gain entry to the Big Top while they performed, and along with him stood a fair portion of the evening’s audience.

For this apologies are due to the band, but there were mitigating circumstances aplenty. One obvious reason why this unusual (for this Festival) delay might have occurred is that thanks to Van Morrison, the ticket buying public were being stopped and stripped of their cameras as they made their way in.

The festival crowd queuing back down Bayhead in Stornoway. © Peter Urpeth

One wonders if the Heb Celtic Festival is not, actually, bigger than all of this, and should have refused to engage with Van’s petulant shenanigans, advising the Irish crooner to enter the spirit of this festival or stay at home. I also imagine that Van’s strict timetabling (jet in jet out) ensured that the organisers could use no flexibility as to the start and finish times of Blas’ set, and hence they sang whilst we queued.

This reviewer certainly did not see or hear any specific warnings that the organisers may have issued to ticket holders to turn up early and don’t bring a camera. To this must be added the fact that Van Meldrew’s games did not stop once inside the tent with the stage-side screens, so helpful in enabling those at the back of the tent to get a good view, left blank for Van’s set.

His fans will have to draw their own conclusions as to acceptability of all this behaviour – personally I find self-indulgent ego mania a real turn off when it comes to music and musicians and we were all knee deep in it last Thursday.

And so to the performance. On one level at least Van certainly did up-end expectations and the trepidation of hype that put the fear on many prior to this gig by playing non-stop for well in excess of an hour and for drawing on material from across the new and entire back catalogue of his work with a good smattering of work from the last two decades and as early as 1970.

The opening half of his time on stage was dedicated to an exposition of the variety of 50s and 60s jazz and blues styles that have come to overtly dominate his music over the years. The canvas includes deep blues, skiffle, rock and roll, Brit trad with strains of Acker Bilk and Louis Armstrong and smooth Blue Note bopism to boot, and not all of it is in its own terms that convincing.

When Van Morrison recorded for Blue Note records many said it was his natural home. In retrospect it was only his natural home in the regard that by then Blue Note had come to represent a certain conservatism in jazz and was far removed from the sense of zeitgeist that in the 1950s propelled the label to the forefront of the new music.

To the dispassionate much of the first part of Van’s set was incongruous on a ‘Celtic’ music stage (but then what is Celtic music anyway?) but it was well received, mind, begging the question as to how much similar music by other artists Van’s fans would listen to? The answer is simply that that’s the following he’s built and sustained over many years (he is 60 in August for whatever that means) and he has certainly taken a legion of followers on a very personal journey, and if it rocks your boat, as they say.

For my money, if Van really is the stuff of legends it only really shows when he heads back in time and in particular to the slower, soulful blues that lets that magnificent and expressive voice take centre stage.

With the jet doubtlessly powering up on the runway, and with the dying echoes of a set that included ‘Bright Side of the Road”, ‘Days Like This’ and ‘Here Comes the Night’, along with new material such as ‘Celtic New Year’ from the latest album ‘Magic Time’ (on Van’s own Exile label), fading rapidly, Van seemed to chill and relax and he became visibly more engaged with his audience.

Hence Van the Man finally produced a sequence that for many will more than compensate for the earlier agro, and the rapturous acclaim that greeted it maybe proves another point. Out came ‘Moondance’, which swung and glistened; out came ‘Star of the County Down’, which further ignited the large crowd; and then there was a ‘Brown Eyed Girl’ that shook the big top to its foundations.

On these numbers, so perfect for the swaggering bluesy blur of his voice, Van rolled back the years and also seemed far more at home than on the other material. This is his real music – it’s emotional, intimate and accessible. Shame that the cove can’t get back to his roots as a man as well.

Now for the hardest act of the Festival. Galician piper Xose Manual Budino had the unenviable task of following Van to the stage. Budino is obviously a gifted piper from within the traditions of native Galicia. A number of Galician musicians have graced the Heb Celtic Festival stage over the years and of these Budino has the most straightforward relationship to the fusion of the tradition with new music.

There is a certain rocky drive and momentum to his music but too often it clatters with unsubtle dance and techno beats, even so he deserves a better chance on the Heb Celtic stage than this with the energy levels of the crowd at odds with the programme schedule enforced by Van Morrison.

© Peter Urpeth, 2005

THE HIGH SPIRITS of the previous night cast a long shadow into the following day, but nothing that a few tunes from the U-18 bodhran champion of Ireland couldn’t fix. Playing with his band in An Lanntair on an exchange trip with Stornoway’s own young guns, Teine, he gave a masterclass in tuneful bodhran-ing before your man had to run for the main stage, Session A9 and Kila.

Session A9 are a large combo that come with an awesome reputation, and a membership that reads like the A-Z of certain parts of Scottish music. The big question is whether the A9s are bigger than the sum of their parts? The answer is an emphatic yes. A sheer joy, in fact, direct in the best way, with reels and jigs and the old ways with this music: fine tunesmiths in charge of blistering musicality – a fine final burst of bow-powered adenalin before the festival dimmed its lights for another year.

But the A9s weren’t the final act. That privilege went to the Irish band, Kila. This was the first time that this writer had caught Kila live on stage and they were nothing short of a revelation. The CDs beckon with a subtle, rich and often introspective edge. Live that translates into a mesmeric, even hypnotic sound, with a driven commitment to emotion.

It’s complex stuff in places, a knot of so many different threads that the single strands appear inseperable. It’s ambiguous music crafted to almost Baroque elaboration but the result is nothing short of compelling, driven by often rapid, trance like rhythms on the bodhran, mixed with short repeated phrases on the pipes and deep airs that seem to hang-glide over the white waters of the rhythm: exhilerating, edgy, unforgetable.

Different in mood and tone, this final night of the festival, was a triumph of subtle programming.
© Peter Urpeth, 2004

Related Sites:

Hebridean Celtic Festival website

LET IT BE SAID, this was the evening on which the Heb Celtic’s plans for big time expansion were fully realised, and the new big top seemed hardly big enough on the night for what was without doubt one of the finest night’s music ever staged at this festival. The risk with change is, of course, that the good qualities in the old might be forsaken for the promise of grander things in the new. But that was not the case on Castle Green. This was the Heb Celt experience full on, only bigger.

Opinions on the night were divided. Some went for the Peatbogs as being the best in show, others The Saw Doctors; either way consensus amongst the huge crowd present was that both bands were in fine fettle. And that is the key to this festival: the fact that the fan base is strong and adoring is vital, but its unique quality is what it brings out in the performers.

The Peatbogs, pied pipers of the inhibitions, skirled us, rocked us, set the feet free and generally transported the throng into a better place that only music has the key to. How do you follow that? Was a common refrain in the brief interval.

But then on comes Ireland’s finest rockers, The Saw Doctors. In the preview article to this festival, I predicted that the Doctors would be welcomed as though returning to their spiritual home, and if anything that turned out to be an understatement. They played their greatest hits, some newer stuff and as many anthems as would grace the opening of any Olympics.

In the mix was probably the deepest, most moving version of The Green and Red of Mayo this writer has witnessed – as many already know, the sky above Tuam is the same sky as that above Stornoway, crossed with the same clouds, the same bright days and dark days, and the whole shared vista is in their music.

This was a gig that if you were there you’ll be saying so for many years to come, a gig to dine out on, a gig to reflect on in tranquillity: ecstatic, bonkers, a madhouse of energy, profound and beautiful, I’ll carry it with me for ages.

© Peter Urpeth, 2004

Related Sites:

• Hebridean Celtic Festival website

DAY TWO SAW the music switch to the new 5000 capacity tent at Lews Castle. The alignment of the venue has changed this year, too, running with the slope of the Castle grounds, with the stage at the bottom to create a raked auditorium. As matters progressed in the evening’s music, it became clear that the big top wasn’t the only monumental institution to be experiencing something of a realignment.

Instinkt's Vivi di Bap

Danish group Instinkt kick-started the programme. Little known outside their own home land, the group’s music is a satisfying mélange of Scandinavian folk, world and roots rhythm and jazz styles, but always keeps to the inshore waters of the Danish/Nordic tradition. That said, the sheer ebullience of their wacky – even demented – stage presence brings to their music a looser, freer, more chancy edge akin to the trickster / shape shifter mythos, and which is not fully evidenced in their most recent CD.

Instinkt are brave and mischievous experimenters as well as being first class musicians. Never has this writer witnessed, for example, the strangely engrossing if decidedly trippy experience of free form, avant-garde hurdy-gurdy playing. Marvellous stuff, really, as is their embracing of voice / instrumental doubling, scat singing and a Pharoah Sanders-like growled out-ness, that comes straight from the jazz styles of the 1960s and 1970s.

On solid ground they create long chains of Hardanger-edged melody on fiddles and flutes and have an introspective, ambient side that is as intense and dark as a Scandinavian winter. Special mention must be made of drummer / singer Vivi di Bap, who came from behind the kit to stun an unexpecting festival cohort with 10 minutes of solo overtone chanting that veered from falsetto top notes to guttural bass churning with alarming ease. Terrifying and beautiful at the same time. Was Stornoway ready for this off-beat explosion of musical energy? Very probably. Did Instinkt steal the show? Well they were probably the finest folk band on the night.

“In this tent and with an excellent programme the festival has made another leap into the stratosphere.”

The band not only rocked but swung as well, and it was clear just how much more the sophistication of contemporary jazz is influencing the sound and rhythm worlds of the Celtic bands. At one stage it seemed – and I hoped – that McGoldrick would actually break free from the anchor of the melodies and solo over the groove set up by an immaculate rhythm section that sounded fresh, inventive and raving as much as the 4500 fans that filled the venue.

But when Karen Matheson periodically strolled to the mic for an occasional go herself, that sparkle rapidly dissolved. On this evidence, her singing is simply too bland and her demeanor, for this reviewer, too indifferent to place in front of a set of instrumentalists with such total commitment to the cause.

This performance suggested that there seems to be two Capercailles at large: a cracking instrumental band and the other one led by a singer. Matheson’s scant patter and overall presence were disappointingly lackluster, slightly patronizing in truth, and her contribution generally irrelevant to the success of their performance and a little too comfortably settled by the fire glow of her/their immense reputation and status.

In contrast, the kicking, full-on instrumental Capercaille is a rare and wonderful native bird, the largest of its kind, majestic and worthy of special conservation. There are in truth better and more interesting Gaelic song outfits in the modern world, but very few better instrumental bands.

In this tent and with an excellent programme the festival has made another leap into the stratosphere. While all is not perfect – no festival is – this year’s event and the growth of this festival is an incredible achievement that evidences the imagination and ambition of its organisers, not to mention their grip on the necessary steely nerves of big-time event management.

© Peter Urpeth, 2004

Related Sites:

• Hebridean Celtic Festival website

THE HEBRIDEAN CELTIC FESTIVAL opened its doors this year to the sound of Teine, a young quartet of singers and multi-instrumentalists from Lewis whose presence on this hallowed stage is not only justified by the quality of their music, but is also totally symptomatic of the vitality, self-confidence and optimism that this Festival brings to the island.

The band played a very varied set of songs ranging from traditional waulking songs to pieces by the Rankin Family and Runrig, and their sound is hallmarked by fine close harmony singing, percussive clarsach playing and some cracking fiddling. Chief among equals in the band is the voice of Catriona Watt, who is establishing a reputation as a fine traditional Gaelic singer for the surety and depth of emotion that she conveys.

Teine

This opening gig of the festival is a very tough stage to conquer and on this account it is clear that as Teine’s music develops, as they grow in their respective talents, and the elusive qualities of space and simplicity that confidence brings to this music will be allowed to take root in their arrangements, they will become regulars on that stage, and established favorites on their home turf. Teine are soon off to Ireland for a similar spin of gigs and its even-money that they will win many friends in a nation that has rightly championed its young music makers. Their set was a joy to witness.

“A great opening night in which your writer did not know whether to laugh, cry or clap, but that’s what great music does to you.”

Maggie’s songs, many learned from her mother, the great traditional singer Flora MacNeil, are principle expressions of that reality and Maggie delivers them with a powerfully enveloping intimacy. The performance served also to reinforce the importance of subtle arrangement and subtle accompaniment. Too many singers and bands take songs from the tradition and then hammer them with depersonalizing clutter in the name of the new tradition. Maggie and her band are an object lesson as to how arrangement and accompaniment can provide access to the tradition as opposed to an apology for its nature.

This music is as contemporary as it comes. In the band was guitarist Kevin MacKenzie, a fluid and inventive soloist more usually found in the jazz cellar, and it is from there that he acquired the taste for a fresh range of nuances in his acoustic playing – at times Reinhardt, and at others Frisell and Metheny, but always MacKenzie. With Brian McAlpine on keyboards, Charlie McKerron on fiddle and Findlay MacDonald on pipes all on hand, the evening was not going to pass without a riot of reels, and that is what we got.

A great opening night in which your writer did not know whether to laugh, cry or clap, but that’s what great music does to you. Shame that both bands had to fight the rotten acoustics of the Victorian pile that houses the town hall venue and a PA system that similarly struggled with the acoustics and was at times so bass-y that it sounded like a fully loaded juggernaut rolling on to a CalMac ferry, but such things are mere asides.

Now, as ever, people make festivals, and if only I had the time and space to tell you about the American visitor to this Festival whose one time day job was as Harvey Keitel’s Elvis voice coach. Maybe tomorrow…

(Peter Urpeth claims to be the Gold Medal winner in the Best Photo on a Festival Press Card Competition)

© Peter Urpeth, 2004

Related Links:

• Hebridean Celtic Festival website

PETER URPETH looks forward to another mass outbreak of Celtic music in the big tent at Lews Castle as the HEBRIDEAN CELTIC FESTIVAL gets underway.

IT IS WITHOUT doubt the most enjoyable week in the Hebridean calendar. A week in which the Isle of Lewis comes alive, as only it can. And this year, with a bigger tent, holding up to 5,000 festival goers, the frustrating sell outs of previous years are a thing of the past. But, with possibly the most populist programme to date, the Heb Celtic Festival may require every inch of its new canvas to accommodate a new cohort of recruits, as new audiences are attracted to sample its delights.

 Chief among equals at this year’s event are Ireland’s folk-country-rock-pop legends, The Saw Doctors. Many on the island will recall the night, a few years back now, that this band played the Coll Sports Centre, and many will also recall being squeezed onto a perch on the sand dunes that ring the venue in order to catch the band. Many Lewis folk feel a special affinity for their music. Maybe it’s the imagery, the Green and Red of Mayo, the new songs of younger exiles, that resonate so deeply in the psyche of the place, or maybe it’s just the sheer accessibility of their music.

Either way their music features sentiments and emotions drawn from the same deep well as the music of the islands, and blends it with a pure dram of Irish party ebullience. Cracking stuff. But that night in Coll was truly mad and memorable and without doubt the crush for tickets will be every bit as great at this gig, their first return visit, as it was on that night.

 The Doctors share a billing with the inimitable Peatbog Faeries, and if that isn’t strong programming for you then you’ve never recovered from the 1st Isle of Wight Festival. Kick off your clogs and enjoy rev’d roots and global dance floor sounds from one of the best around.

Also from the Gaelic stratosphere come Capercaille. Their more cool and mellow ambience – or chill-out mood, which might be more appropriate in the worst summer on record in the islands – will bring a fitting close to events on Thursday. The Caper’s music suits the bigger venues well, and with the organizers promising much from a new sound system, this gig could be a sonic sensation. Saturday is reserved for Kila’s folk fusions and the Session A9 crew, a great last chance for a jig.

“It’s good to see, too, that new bands are getting a chance this year with a performance by the much garlanded band Teine”

A final note – festivals need traditions, and one that this writer wholly endorses is that of singer and clarsach player Maggie Macinnes kicking off events with her band. When I asked festival supreme Caroline MacLennan if the return of Maggie Macinnes to open the gig was more by luck than design, she gave something of a blank look in reply. Maggie starts the Festival because, to quote Caroline, “the music is what I think of as perfection.”

It’s difficult to disagree. Two years ago, this writer penned that Maggie must be considered the best performer in Gaelic music, and it’s a claim I stick by. Maggie is capable of creating a sound of heart-melting beauty and of mesmeric intensity, but if you haven’t got a ticket for this one, you’ll have to take my word for it as the opening gig in town hall is a sold out.

It’s good to see, too, that new bands are getting a chance this year with a performance by the much garlanded band Teine. Teine are a group of four young singers and musicians based in Lewis. For all those who haven’t heard band member Catriona Watt singing a traditional song, make sure you get a ticket to the next Teine gig as her vocals are a rare treat.

Peter Urpeth will be reporting from the Hebridean Celtic Festival in the coming days. The festival runs from 14-17 July in Stornoway and the Isle of Lewis.

© Peter Urpeth, 2004

Related Link

• Hebridean Celtic Festival website 

One of those tours features a band that has become something of an institution in Scottish folk over the 35 – count ‘em – years that they have been in existence. That could only be the Battlefield Band, of course, and they are the subject our major interview feature this month.

Highland rockers Dionyssus’s attempt to win the Emergenza Battle of the Band awards finally came to a halt in Glasgow , as Catriona Paul reports, but the band have certainly made their mark in the course of the contest, and can look forward to some interesting developments in the months to come.

The other major new feature this month is the Arts Journal’s survey of attitudes to the National Theatre of Scotland among the movers and shakers of Highland theatre. It has produced some very interesting and passionate responses, and I am still hopeful that one or two other tardy respondents will let us have their views (you know who your are!). Much food for thought, and our Discussion Forum provides an outlet to air your own views on the subject, or indeed anything else in the realm of Highland arts and culture.

Kenny Mathieson
Commissioning Editor

SET IN THE glorious surroundings of Lews Castle and mature woodlands with dramatic views of Stornoway harbour, the Hebridean Celtic Festival has always had a lot to live up, to but since its conception in 1996 the event has grown and received international recognition and acclaim.

The spiritual undercurrents of the isles, the friendly locals and the Mediterranean landscapes are the essential ingredients which make the Hebridean Celtic Festival such a sweet dish. Add to that the ‘cherry on the top with a delicious mix of international acts and local talent and you have a bona-fide masterpiece on your hands.

This year will be my fourth Heb Celtic experience and each year brings with it new sprinkles of surprise and delivers hour after hour, day after day of breathtaking performances to the excited mob. Last year I specifically returned home to the Island for the Festival and took the weekend off from my bar job in the smoky urban monster that is Glasgow.

I was accompanied by six brave fools, all virgins to the festival and to the isles, enticed by the promise of a unique experience … oh and the promise that magic mushrooms grew in abundance on my croft at home. After a few hours spent knocking back ‘the water of life’, I led my jovial troop onwards to the Castle Grounds and to the wall of yellow that besieges all entrances to the area.

Security is tight – heartbreakingly, they stripped us of our aluminium friends and sent us onwards to the canvas giant, wherein lay our evening’s destiny. As we took our spot the first act began and a roar filled the tent. I cast a glance to each of my merry companions who, like me, stood in open-mouthed and starry-eyed wonderment at the majesty of the occasion.

Believe the hype, it truly is extraordinary. Six hours of foot-tapping, partner swinging mayhem captivated us along with the several hundred islanders and adopted islanders in attendance that rejoiced in the epic musical experience, escalating into peaks of inspiration and glory. Many new friends were made and a new appreciation of home and Celtic culture was born in me all those years ago on my festival debut, as it was in my Glaswegian posse last year.

I can not acclaim the event high enough and this year I shall be exposing two American friends to the nuclear atmosphere. I can guarantee that once bitten by the Hebridean Celtic bug, there is no return. Like Spiderman, you’ll never be the same again.

© An Sgadan Robach, 2003

After the hedonistic heights scaled during the previous three nights, Saturday night had a lot to live up to with expectations and standards raised. This year a mind-bogglingly vast crowd had packed themselves into the tent to sample the delights on the Hebridean Celtic Festival menu.

Salsa Celtica at Heb Celt 2003

An evening of serious rush-of-blood-to-the-head, down-the-front experience was served by the wonderful headline act Salsa Celtica who delighted the crowd and whipped up a wild chorus of approval. They stepped into the notoriously tricky spot of Saturday night headliners with apparent ease, serving up their Latin-Celtic delights with a robust attitude essential for the survival of a crowd who had been enthralled with three straight days of Hebridean quality and had enjoyed a supreme set by The Waterboys the previous evening.

Salsa Celtica executed a magical prime set delivering one of those occasions where a band can rise above their station and deliver nectar to the ear of every one in attendance. The evening had begun well with the thrash Celtic outfit The Finlay Macdonald Band who opened to rousing applause and delivered their unique brand of Celtic sounds with a twist of rock.

The young, Scottish five-piece cranked up the excitement levels early into their set with some harmonic melodies teamed with bagpipe brimming with Celtic traditions. The crowd were more than happy to stomp away merrily in beat with them.

At the epicentre of the Hebridean experience lay the solitary grumble, namely the queues which stemmed from the beer tents and the toilets. The stalls were badly located, and with a sea of bodies encasing the porta-loos, desperate action had to be taken. I was not alone in gloriously relieving myself against a tree before retreating into the canvas heaven.

By the end of the evening as I walked into the town, conversation was fractured to say the least as myself and most of my festival veterans had forgotten where or what sleep was but one thing we were left in no doubt was that we had been part of a musical masterpiece where for once the weather had matched the performers.

© An Sgadan Robach, 2003

FROM EARLY MORNING the festival office had the sign in its window: ‘Tonight’s events are sold out’.

The Waterboys at Heb Celt 2003

The Waterboys would play to a packed house, as would McGoldrick, McSherry, O’Connor and Byrne. As previously flagged-up on this site, The Waterboys have enjoyed something of an Indian Summer over recent years  with the success of material such as Fisherman’s Blues. But, the latest album is a self-indulgent dud, and the threat that Mike Scott would inflict the new material on a late-night festival crowd whipped into a frenzy by the dazzling panache of McGoldrick and Co., promised to generate a volatile musical situation that could have seen band and audience at odds.

Being Mike Scott, a perverse thrid-way was found. He played all the old stuff, and yes we did see the whole of the moon. The Waterboys, on last night’s showing, play their own back catalogue like they are actually a Waterboys tribute band.

For all the interesting meanders in his recent career, Mike Scott’s true colours are those of a rock musician. So, this gig came complete with thrashy drummer – who joined in the singing through a Phil Collins style over-head mic – and a keyboardist who really wants to be a concert pianist and who played one of the most laughably grandiose Classical interludes this writer has ever had the misfortune to witness.

Mike Scott came in after the initial cadenza was nearly over with a modal ballad and it was, all of a sudden, Liztomania meets Donovan. Things were getting so out of hand that I half-expected the piano to induce a heart-stopping theatrical moment when the spot-lights would swing out of the marquee and onto the turrets of the castle, picking out Mike Scott as he embarked on a really, really big solo. But that opportunity was missed.

Most irritating though was the Will O The Wisp fiddler who hopped around the stage, ducked and dived on electric fiddle, nearly playing some reel-like melodies. Rock violin, as all viewers will concur, is one aspect of the 70s that should be eschewed when it comes to retro styling. I also have a real dislike for bands who show-up at festivals of this kind complete with the full deck of roadies who loaf around in the shadows handing out 12-string acoustics and electric mandolins. It’s so uncouth, and all the intention is not merited on purely musical terms.

A far better closing act would have been the first gig of the night. This was classic Hebridean Celtic Festival stuff. McGoldrick and Co. exude a passion for the music that is totally engaging and the feel-good factor is everything a late-night festival should deliver.

A note about the event itself. The Hebridean Celtic Festival organisers have excelled themselves this year. The Waterboys were a worthwhile gamble and the fact that they were in Stornoway is a tribute to the work of those who put this thing together. Last night was a sell out, and I would estimate that they probably had in excess of 2,500 people in that marquee.

That is great for the music and great for islands. Summer on Lewis without this Festival is now unthinkable. The mix of music has been special, the town has been bulging at the seams and let’s hope that the impetus that this kind of event can bring will foster greater commitment from those who tie and untie the purse strings to the creative economy of the region.

© Peter Urpeth, 2003

THE MUSIC started early yesterday for this reviewer. The offices of my day job are above the shops in the centre of Stornoway, and from mid morning the sound of buskers wafted through the open windows, a mix of piping, guitar and fiddle duets and that strange background hum that crowds seem to generate just by being crowds.

Street Performers at Heb Celt

The distinctive shape of Lewis fiddler Alasdair White was spotted clutching his fiddle case, and that meant locking the office and following him to the location of his next session. This time around it was The Crown Bar in central Stornoway, and Alasdair was joined by a banjoist and bouzouki player of rare talent.

The three of them kicked into a stream of reels and jigs the pace and heat of which would have set the heather blazing. They were soon joined by five other fiddlers, an accordionist and bass recorder / tin whistler, and the bar was well and truly occupied. What a rare treat it is to have the islands’ home grown talent actually at home and playing live, and how sad it is to reflect on how much good they would do for the future of music making locally if a few were able to stay, perform regularly and make a decent enough living from their island base.

This reviewer fell in with a couple of Canadians who sailed here from Iona, via Skye, only to find out that their compatriot Gael, Mary Jane Lamond, was singing round the corner in An Lanntair. Over dinner they decided that it would be too sad by far to take in that gig having come all this way, and instead, along with a steady column of people, marched out to the Castle Grounds and the light-filled marquee.

The first marquee gig of this year’s Hebridean Celtic Festival saw Galician band Luar na Lubre take the stage, and it was apparent from the outset that the band’s claim of a ‘Galician Celticness’ is well founded. Luar na Lubre have been together since the mid-1980s and are proud exponents of, and advocates for, the very distinctive culture of Galicia, a province in the north of Spain with its own language and culture.

The connections between the Galician Celts and the more northern Atlantic Celtic traditions goes back to the days when Galicia, Ireland, Wales, Cornwall, the Isle of Man and the West Coast of Scotland were key staging posts in the sea routes used by the Vikings and other sea wandering peoples.

In Galicia, the culture of these visitors stuck fast. But, these are not the only influences on Luar na Lubre’s music and that of Galicia in general. For the full force of Spain’s southern and eastern influences can be heard, creating a dazzling hybrid of styles that’s rooted in Celtic, eastern and north African styles.
Interestingly, Luar na Lubre apparently received a boost some years ago when they were ‘discovered’ by Mike Oldfield, under whose patronage their music began to reach a wider audience.

Their music glistens like gold, and has a compelling rhythmic drive that is simply irresistible, Oldfield himself once described their music as ‘like listening to the Sun’. To the islander steeped in Gaelic traditional music Luar na Lubre’s music would sound both very familiar in terms of the reel-like flow of lines, and distinctly different due to the unusual instrumentation.

Band members Rosa Cedron, Xulio Varela, Bieito Romero, Eduardo Coma, Patxi Bermudez, Pedro Valero, Xavier Ferreiro and Xan Cerqueiro play a variety of familiar, and not so familiar instruments including Galician pipes and frame drum along with bouzouki, bodhran and tambourines.

Added to this mix is Rosa’s stunning vocals and fluid electric cello playing. The sheer bravado of their up-tempo playing is spectacle enough in itself but add to that the emotion of their slower material and you have a music that’s compelling listening.

Like so many of the bands that visit Lewis from far afield for the Festival, the gig seems to be over before it has started and it would be good to have bands such as Luar na Lubre perform on consecutive evenings as part of the programme, as a second listening would enable greater appreciation of what is undoubtedly one of the finest bands currently touring.

With the marquee crowd high as kites on the back of Luar na Lubre, on comes Fiddlers Bid. There is not much to add to the superlatives that have been written about this band. They swing and blister their way through with the flaying bows of rhythmic abandon. Compulsive, addictive, intoxicating… or is that the fresh brew from our new local brewery? ‘Festivale’ is a good quaff, pulled straight from the barrel. If there are beer Oscars then it should consider itself nominated in the best supporting actor role.

I left the tent as the last glow was fading from the lighting rig and walked toward the taxi rank, full to the brim with great sounds and a fascinating evening with friends and strangers. But, is there no mercy? As I turned the corner, there was the big man himself, fiddle in hand, and with him the banjo and bouzouki boys in full flight. I joined them and danced with the passing women who also did not want the music to end that night.

© Peter Urpeth, 2003

Mary Jane Lamond

THE HEBRIDEAN CELTIC FESTIVAL opened  its doors to an expectant public last night, with a concert of rare beauty. No, not for us on this grassy knoll bound by the mad Atlantic foam, the fire-tailed rocket of a whirling gig to blast us into four days of  musical and other indulgence, but a welcoming, softly spoken musical failte.

But then, every tent needs a peg, and the big top that is the Hebridean Celtic Festival marked its ground and secured its lines last night with an emphatic paean, a celebration of the language of the Gael, both east and west, and north and south.

But an aside. Earlier this week on BBC Radio na Gaidheal, Christine Kennedy sat in for one of the morning show hosts and commented that, in her opinion, many Gaelic language learners are taught certain words, and often inappropriately, such that the word was ‘losing its soul’ . One such word she mentioned is ‘sgoinneil’.

This word, she claims is now so common that it lost its edge, and even its meaning has changed from sort of neat, tidy, careful, to mean excellent or fabulous, wonderful, enjoyable. So, in that spirit, if in the next few days this writer drifts into superlatives, please be assured that they are measured against a real proof of their meaning and not the lazy habits of contemporary journalistic life.

In Studio Alba, on the outskirts of Stornoway, the festival commission ‘Atlantic Movement’ was premiered to a packed house. The idea of the piece was simple in structure. Gather together seven female voices from both sides of the Atlantic – Cape Breton, Ireland, Wales and the Hebrides – and join them with a small band of traditional musicians to make a piece that celebrates and explores the shared spoken and musical language of the pan-Atlantic Gael.

Under the musical direction of Andy Thorburn, with Dylan Fowler (guitar), Aidan O’Rourke (fiddle) and Fraya Thomsen (clarsach), Gaelic singers Mairi Smith, Julie Fowlis and Alyth McCormack were met on home soil by County Meath’s singing sisters Maighread and Triona Ni Dhomhnaill, Welsh singer Julie Murphy, and Cape Breton’s Mary Jane Lamond.

Rather than clutter the finery of their voices, the piece was assembled from traditional songs from each of the areas represented, with subtle musical and vocal support. The piece worked through a series of themes, opening with ‘Failte bho na Gaidheal / Welcome From the Gaels’ to sections exploring work songs, old songs, uprooting and ‘Gluaiseachd / Movement’.

The success of the structure given to the piece by Andy Thorburn was its almost complete invisibility. This was not over-worked or forced, or even contrived to force sameness or difference against the grain of the music. The success was in the sense of unity and warmth that simply exuded from the singers. Not saccharine platitude but real, genuine emotion.

One poignant moment came early on when Cape Breton’s Mary Jane Lamond introduced herself and a love song, but prefixed her introduction with the statement that she was from the once large Gaelic-speaking community of Cape Breton Island, where 30,000 highlanders and islanders settled and made one corner of the Canadian nation their own.

Mary Jane said that she felt privileged to be a part of the tail-end of that culture that was now almost gone. This remark reverberated with many islanders – many of the older generation living here in Canada’s ‘old country’ will have direct blood connection with Cape Breton, and the loss of its Gaelic culture over the last fifty years has been like the loss of a twin.

The set of Sean Nos early in proceedings brought forth another highlight, the singing of Lewis’s Mairi Smith. It is perhaps unfair to single out one of these voices, but Mairi Smith is truly one of the finest traditional singers in Scotland. Her voice seems to have contact with the elemental and raw emotions of these songs in a way that many singers can only imitate.

On one level, singing is all about the beauty of  sound, and the distinctive, instantly recognisable timbre of Mairi Smith’s singing is one of the hallmarks sounds of Lewis. For some bizarre reason Mairi remains unrecorded although, I understand that is about to change.

A note of regret. Maighread and Triona ni Dhomhnaill accompanied themselves early on in this piece with a keyboard set on a kind of strings / electric piano blend that seemed to underpin an ambiguity in their early songs about its direction. The keys were far too mushy and swamped the edges of these two fine singers’ voices. But that is but an aside.

The Hebridean Celtic Festival organisers were right to set this band of marvellous, expressive singers at centre stage on the first night. Before the stramash of the next few nights we were given a meadow of fine songs, each song a rare orchid in that place and somehow the territory of this Festival was established with pride, depth, feeling, and doesn’t Gaelic make the world feel like a small place?

If English is the language of computing, then Gaelic in all its forms is the language of humanity. This was grace before the feed, and to invert and paraphrase in badly translated Irish, a few words from an old Donegal air: they gave us the east, they gave us the west, they gave us the sun…

Today this writer is off to see Mary Jane Lamond lead a workshop at An Lanntair, then this evening more Gaelic song in that same place, and a trip to the marquee. The sun is blazing.

But a note of caution…I heard the latest CD from The Waterboys yesterday. Oh dear. The big fellar has gone back to his roots, and no they don’t seem to be in Tir nan og, but in a sixth form commonroom. To this writer, the CD it is a sorry amalgam of dirge-like self-indulgence with all the spiritual lift of an ill-fitted cheesecloth bra.

Maybe, after all the fine words, The Waterboys in their present format are not best fitted to a Friday night ceilidh in a festival marquee. This is the big gig and it could, of course, if the band take their audience with them, be the gig of the century. Alternatively, it could be a mismatch  running on two left feet, at least one of which has had a fair bit to drink. This writer will be there to witness the fall out…or the glory. It will be memorable, either way.

© Peter Urpeth, 2003

THERE IS MORE to the Heb Celtic Festival than the usual marquee-d, hedonistic stramash that summer festivals have become known for. This festival does centre on the now familiar illuminated canvas pleasure dome, of the type which houses all such events, but we must not forget that there are also the small gigs, the 50-seaters held in the air-less art centres and techy warehouses on the outskirts of our minuscule conurbation.

Last year, it seemed as though, unknown to the organisers, it was to be a summer of love. On the first night of the festival I made for An Lanntair and heard a concert by Mongolian throat singer Tserendevra. This giant musician whose physical music seems to encapsulate a constellation of emotions so far removed from our own sphere and yet accessible and knowable, performed for maybe two hours. He sang of mountains and lakes and deserts and finished his set with a love song – dedicated to a horse.

The following night I went back to the gallery for another small, intimate event, a gig by one of Gaeldom’s foremost traditional singers, Christine Primrose.

Being a Gaelic music gig the tone was in part reflective, if not melancholic, ripe with all the emotions that one would expect from a culture trapped by the sea in its own company. Christine finished the gig with a local love song – dedicated to a boat.

The next morning, I made for a workshop and it was back into the company of Tserendevra. A large crowd, ranging from children to pensioners, filled the gallery’s small space and were led through a series of vowel-quashing, consonant compressing throat muscle exercises.

In my own case, a love song to the hoarse was my only output, but the experience, mixed as it was with yoga-type warm-up exercises, was uplifting, eye-opening, expansive. I left and went to Safeway to finish the week’s shopping. C’est la vie in a world where such sweet charms, such exotic fruits matter so much to the local populace, myself included, who cherish what this festival brings us. Not so much a festival as a world-music box scheme in which every year a basket of raw goodness is delivered to our shores, fresh from the Earth.

The year before I recall being captivated by the hushed mesmeric music of Maggie Macinnes and her clarsach as she sang nearly twenty verses of a Gaelic prayer to the Virgin Mary. It was the pure stuff, no doubt, and it silenced a large crowd.

We will all remember Runrig. Not that I concur with the many who think that their Canadian frontman is a spot on The Guv’nor himself, Donnie Munro. But anthems are anthems, and the crowd were ready for that heady stadium thump. The place bulged as the snare pounded; bulged with sweaty ringside spirituality and we were all boozy chums, some in colours, others bare at the torso; it was peculiarly nostalgic event, a kind of end of term party.

And marquees will always be marquees. Speakers and lights. Barriers and thick-cored wire belted in rubber. The potent blend of aromas – trampled grass, booze, more grass, marquee cloth, rope, generator oil and fresh rain, patchouli, gutted fish, the harbour, mud (sometimes even the music stinks).

People are dancing on the grass and mud, people who you see every day at work in banks and the Co-op, hotel receptionists, Calmac stewards, teachers, officers of every kind, louts and liggers, fish gutters, a Priest, a coterie of elected representatives in shirts and ties and print dresses; the young, the younger, all under the ribbed vault of canvas, all less formal than usual.

Couples sitting on a low grass bank near-by getting a break in cold air from the humidity of enjoyment. Goths snogging under birch trees. The empty castle sulks in the background – they should turn it into a derelict asylum, more potent that way than being a derelict relic of feudalism. Midges. Gaelic. Angels on violins, soldiers on bag pipes.

“Hello Cove! What’s Fresh?”

“Nothing at all.”

Stop and listen for a second, hold back the music. The flow is riverrun with jigs and reels, the rhythm as old as oar music. Is Salmon a box player or a harpist? Seal plays mouthie.

In four days the music lays bare her soul: narcissistic, Dionysian, Atlantic. Whatever ‘Celtic’ means in the title of this festival, if it does mean anything with regard to the various traditional musics of the presumed ‘Celtic’ regions, it is probably something akin to the relationship between Tikka Masala and real Indian food.

A kind of perfected hybrid that even the locals take to and love and assimilate and incorporate and devour as though it were their own. And that is our feast. These few short days and nights are our summer. Live it and love it – bring the horse, bring the boat, come alone, but don’t miss it. It is midsummer hogmanay.

This year’s festival runs from 16-19 July 2003 in Stornoway.

Peter Urpeth is a Contributing Editor to the Arts Journal.

Those hoping to see The Waterboys perform a power-packed stadium rock gig at this year’s Hebridean Celtic Festival (16-20 July), are in for something of a surprise. For the days when Mike Scott and friends gave us such drum-thumping rock anthems as ‘The Whole of the Moon’ are over, confined to their 80s ghetto. Now, The Waterboys are deeper, more soulful and certainly more ‘Celtic’ than ever before, as testified to by the success of their albums, including ‘Fisherman’s Blues’, ‘Room To Roam’, ‘Dream Harder’ and, most recently, ‘Universal Hall’.

Between the days when a mullet was something you wore rather than something you eat, the nomadic urge has taken the chameleon-like Scott from Edinburgh’s alt-rock scene to spells living in the calm waters of the Findhorn Community and on the West Coast of Ireland, and his music, while retaining the distinctive Waterboys sound, has gathered the array of influences offered by immersion in those very different environments, to make music he describes as being “part minimal, part full-ensemble and wholly unclassifiable.”

It is no exaggeration to say that gigs such as The Heb Celtic Festival are now the ideal venues for The Waterboys and their new music, providing for a meeting-of-minds between band and audience that is simply not available in the barn-like caverns of rock stadia.

Mike Scott is certainly shrewd enough to follow his musical instincts and hats-off to the Heb Celtic Festival for being shrewd enough to spot a headline act that fits the festival like a glove, and which should provide for one of their best sets to date. And that’s saying something.

On the other side of the Heb Celtic spectrum is this year’s commission ‘Gluaiseachd a’Chuain Siar: Atlantic Movement’, which draws together some of the finest female talent from around the international Celtic scene, including Mary Jane Lamond, acclaimed singer from Cape Breton; top Gaelic artists Màiri Smith, Alyth McCormack and Julie Fowlis; Maighréad and Tríona Ní Dhómhnaill from one of Donegal’s finest singing families and Julie Murphy, singer from leading Welsh folk group Fernhill.

This flagship project will be working under the inspired musical direction of composer, performer and teacher Andy Thorburn, one of Scotland’s busiest musicians, and supporting the singers will be instrumentalists, guitarist Dylan Fowler and fiddler Aiden O’Rourke.

Perhaps borrowing a title from Kenneth White’s epic poem ‘The Atlantic Movement’, such a loan would not be entirely inappropriate for White’s 1985 masterpiece is a celebration of the Atlantic poet-mariners, whether they be priests or whalers, who carried their poetics from Western port to Western port, from Inuit Labrador to the Bay of Biscay, from Brandan to Melville, and the cross-Atlantic cast for this commission will certainly provide for an exploration of the unifying strands of our musical traditions that unite us across that big water.

To pick one name from the cast of talents that will be performing this commission is perhaps a little unfair, but any chance to hear Màiri Smith must be taken. Màiri’s distinctive tone and soul-touching expressive range are close to the essence of traditional song on Lewis.

The Hebridean Celtic Festival takes place in venues throughout the Western Isles of Scotland between 16th and 20th July 2003. © Peter Urpeth, 2003

Related Links

• Hebridean Celtic Festival
• Mike Scott & The Waterboys website