Blog
The last hurrah
There were just too many fantastic moments to count during the final Festival Club spree of Celtic Connections 2012 - at least until we’ve had some sleep and reintroduced ourselves to green vegetables – so what follows are our blearily/hastily/painstakingly edited highlights.
Read More...One last blast
The Treacherous Orchestra scored an all-round triumphant double last night, having sold out the 1300-capacity O2ABC in very short order, for the launch of their debut album Origins, after which they returned to blow the roof off their Festival Club spawning-ground. An altogether spine-tinglingly magnificent ABC performance was crowned when they came back for the encore with bodhran player Martin O’Neill resplendently dressed up as Stevie Wonder – with whom he famously toured a year or so back – posing centre-stage behind a pretend piano for the opening measures of perennial crowd-pleaser ‘Sausages’. And it must have been a particularly proud moment earlier on for flute player and native Glaswegian Kevin O’Neill – individually not the highest-profile member of the band – when the mere mention of his name as author of the next tune raised an almighty cheer.
Read More...Blog on tour
First-hand reports from the audience at last night’s Transatlantic Sessions concert up in Lerwick – as part of the ongoing Scotland’s Islands promotion, which culminates with Celtic Connections’ Big Top on Skye in March – were that many locals regarded it as either a) the best gig they’ve ever seen in Shetland, or b) the best gig they’ve ever seen, full stop. Given a) the islands’ own large population of world-class musicians, b) the highly discerning tastes of the population as a whole, and c) the calibre of concerts annually laid on at the renowned Shetland Folk Festival, this was high praise indeed. By his own admission, the show was a nervous one for the Sessions’ joint musical director, Aly Bain, costing him more than one sleepless night at the prospect of playing to his home crowd, so he above all was thoroughly delighted with how sparklingly it went and a rapturous reception that culminated in not one but two standing ovations. He also had the opportunity to introduce several of his family to the likes of Raul Malo and Jerry Douglas backstage afterwards, before heading to Lerwick’s celebrated Lounge pub, where he received a hero’s welcome from – at his own estimate – “about 52 cousins”.
Read More...Star moments
There was a bit of a dream-come-true moment last night for a group of regular Celtic Connections visitors from Ireland, who come every year and take in not just one but both Transatlantic Sessions shows. They were relaxing in the Holiday Inn bar after last night’s gig, one of them with a guitar, singing a few songs – when in walked most of the Transatlantic performers, and thus our Irish friends finished up their night sharing a table and some more songs with Raul Malo and Declan O’Rourke, among others. Particular treats included O’Rourke singing an apparently stunning, as yet unrecorded new song about the Irish famine: one to look out for on his next album, perhaps.
Read More...Festival frenzy
After last night’s fearsome tunes frenzy at the supposedly final Folkytown, along at the Flying Duck - Damien Dempsey was there and everything - the word on da street (well, on Facebook…) is that Calum MacCrimmon’s ridiculously successful Celtic fringe shenanigans will enjoy one last hurrah (unless of course it becomes an ongoing thing…) this coming Sunday, probably from 4-8pm or thereabouts: the perfect way to set yourself up for the final night’s maelstrom at the Festival Club.
Read More...Bargains, bemoaning and beserking
A promising early gush of entries for our band name/new genre competition has since slowed to a rather disappointing trickle – but it’s not quite too late: get your thinking caps on, let your imagination run riot, and email your best efforts and your contact details to us by midnight tonight, and you too could win two tickets to this Sunday’s Hazy Recollections gig at the O2 ABC – featuring Dead Man’s Waltz, Captain and the Kings, The Seventeenth Century, Gabby Young and the Hidden Lane Choir – and other possible as-yet unspecified goodies. We reproduce the rules below.
Read More...Musical mayhem and magic
Given that Mr Calum MacCrimmon’s Folkytown shenanigans kick off again tonight, it seems not too late to recount the cautionary tale of a certain young Scottish fiddler who attended last Tuesday’s launch night, and – like many in attendance – enjoyed himself not wisely but too well. Like a good few who were in attendance, he was meant to be up bright and early the next morning, having signed up to take part in the Artists’ Day that was jointly laid on by Showcase Scotland and the Musicians Union, offering free expert advice on such useful themes as setting up your own record label, media interview techniques, fundraising and grants. Not only that, but our fiddling friend had been designated as one of the group leaders, for a session where participants were split into four groups – this session being scheduled at 11.30am. Shortly before 3pm, he was encountered hastening along to the event’s venue, and when accosted regarding his tardiness, he hotly defended himself with tales of dodgy chicken and food poisoning. “So it wasn’t Folkytown’s fault?” we replied, sceptically. “No, it was the fact that when I got back from Folkytown, I decided to cook some chicken, and didn’t leave it in the oven long enough.” We rest our case. Anyway, for those who dare, tonight’s line-up features Ross Couper and Tom Oakes, Man’s Ruin, then Angus Binnie on the decks; the fun at the Flying Duck runs 11pm-3am; £3 to get in; cheap drinks; general debauchery.
Read More...Rude awakenings
First off today, the news item that Savourna Stevenson’s 50th birthday concert tomorrow night, for various logistical reasons, has been moved from the City Halls to the Piping Centre, doubling up on the bill with Litha – who might seem an unfamiliar name but were formerly known as 2Duos, featuring the wonderful Aaron Jones and Claire Mann with German fellow singers/multi-instrumentalists Gudrun Walther and Jürgen Treyz. They’ll be launching their second album, Dancing of the Light, at the show.
Read More...Applause and announcements
Having successfully passed the half way mark (hip, hip, hooray!), we’d like to raise a glass to the devoted team of staff and volunteers who are keeping this entire monstrous show on the road; who are working their butts off around the clock for the full 18 days trying to keep more than 2000 musicians happy, across 300-plus events in 20 venues. Most important of all, they’re working to keep the festival’s 100,000-strong audience happy, without whom none of us would be here, so let’s just remember that!
Read More...Unexpected encounters of the Celtic kind
As its name attests, this festival is all about the connections – celebrating them, creating them, discovering them, reviving them – but sometimes they can be found in and lead back to the least expected places. Such was the experience of a certain esteemed radio producer yesterday, after he'd he bumped into singer Alyth McCormack for the first time this year. Once they’d greeted one another, she introduced him to playwright Hamish MacDonald, author of The Captain’s Collection, in which she’d been performing at the Tron. MacDonald and he got chatting, both being long time Glasgow West End denizens, and eventually realised that they’d once been neighbours in the same block of bedsits on Doune Gardens, about 27 years ago. As MacDonald remembered, said producer was then a blue-Mohican-ed punk, sharing the bedsit with his girlfriend, up to eight rabbits (they started out with one, got another without checking its sex; the two then did like rabbits do...), and a guinea pig. In fact, our broadcaster friend concluded, he probably owes his life to MacDonald’s quick thinking, on that infamous night when a bonfire of T-shirts was lit in the stairwell...purely in devotion to the true punk cause, of course.
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