By CHRIS MacKENZIE
It is not so much an elephant as a ruddy great diplodocus sitting in the corner, so we might as well address it first. Piping Live! has changed, not in its ethos, that is still bring great piping to the masses, but in its execution. The layout around the National Piping Centre now has a stage, front and centre of the building, with stadium level amplification, no more straining to hear the pipers over the noise from Cowcaddens Road. There is also a smaller tent where the main tent used to be, and there is, of course, still a bar, well three actually, turns out listening to piping and drumming is as thirsty work as playing.
The big change is that the stuff around the Centre is no longer free. Putting events on is ridiculously expensive and the Centre are covering a portion of that cost with a £10 entry fee. That fee covers most of the events inside the event although some of the events in the main auditorium have an additional cost. So how did it go?
An hour and a half in and we have already rocked out to the rollicking sound of Rhuvaal and chilled to the sweet piping and whistle playing of John Dew. Already the £10 fee is starting to feel like great value. Despite being around for about a decade Rhuvaal were on as ‘emerging talent’, note – try and catch anything tagged as emerging talent they are always terrific, and they blew the early crowd away with a full on blast of tunes and some songs that may well have had their debut at Piping Live!, Amy Macdonald’s This is the life and Luke Combs’ When it rains it pours.
It was off to The Bothy to cool down a little but as compere Dougie Pincock labelled it the Sauna Tent that was looking unlikely, however John Dew took us through the tunes from his fabulous new album, Na Caismeachdan (The Marches) and his beautifully relaxed pipe and whistle playing lowered the heart rate.
Just time to catch a few Ukrainian tunes from the Kiev Ethno trio on the main stage, before heading to one of the oddest events ever held at Piping Live! Is it deeply ironic, at an event called Piping Live!, to have a record player on stage and have the audience listen to a LP made nearly forty years ago? Clearly yes, but when that recording is the seminal 78th Fraser Highlanders Live in Ireland LP then a room full of people clearly agree that it is worth their time to hear the thoughts of three of the originators of the recording, Micheal Grey, Bruce Gandy and J Reid Maxwell alongside Bass Drummer legend Chris Ross (the Vale) and Ian K. MacDonald.
It was apparently Michael’s idea to have this as both as a tribute to the late Bill Livingstone, the PM of the 78th’s for so long, and a more general discussion on the album’s wider significance to the pipe band scene. Compered by Gary West, the two hours passed in a heartbeat, and the revelations of the three amigos that were instrumental in creating that 78th sound back in 1987 was enlightening and a very fitting tribute to the legend Bill Livingstone.
With blinking eyes it was back out into the sunshine for a cracking display of Drum Major flourishing from The Force. Special shout out to the Force Mini’s – three eleven year old’s who completely stole the show and not a dropped mace anywhere. The closing action the main stage were Beinn Lee who, surprisingly, had never played Piping Live! before. Their powerful blend of Uist tunes and songs had the crowd lapping it up in the sunshine.
That ended the entertainment for the £10 entry fee and it is difficult to say anything other than that it represents fabulous value for money. Anyone who has attended a gig recently will know how expensive they are so getting a full days entertainment for a tenner has got to be great value.
The evening choice turned into a little bit of a battle of the sexes. The quartet competition is always sold out and one of the corner stones of Piping Live! but it is highly unlikely to have had more than a couple of ladies in the competition (top grade band piping has only around 8% females). By contrast two all female groups took to the auditorium stage to provide a great night of entertainment. First up were a quartet representing the incredible Ceòlas movement. Ingrid and Megan Henderson, Sheena Peteranna and the hardest working person on the stage, step dancer Sandra Robertson, provided a great set of tunes and Gaelic songs from across the years of the event.
Next up was Bann, a collaboration between Brìghde Chaimbeul on smallpipes, Louise Mulcahy on Uilleann pipes, Isla Callister on fiddle and Gaelic singer Kirsty-Ann McInnes. The music spanned the Gaelic realms of Scotland, Ireland and the Isle of Man. The shared history and common repertoire of the music across each culture shone through as the delightful music filled the room. All in all great night’s entertainment.
Musical highlights from the week can be found on the bagpipe.news instagram page here: https://www.instagram.com/bagpipe.news