
By all accounts, Sunday’s second Between Islandsconcert, carrying the theme into Orkney Folk Festival’s ever-evolving and justly celebrated annual showcase, The Gathering, was just as much as a triumph as Saturday’s, if not even more so. Extending the inter-island connections beyond Orkney, Shetland and the Hebrides and across the Atlantic, Cape Breton quartet Còig were especially thrilled to take part, with fiddler Chrissy Crowley still wowed by the experience hours later. Not only was she overjoyed to be sharing a stage with Douglas Montgomery, one of her longtime heroes, but had then looked up and spotted a whole bunch of others – including Lau and Gaelic singer Kathleen MacInnes– among those loving the band’s set. She’d been having a ball already, but that totally made her weekend.
Also talking of Lau, while there were numerous highlights during Sunday’s Farewell Concert at the Town Hall, foremost among them for many was the trio’s wholly stripped-back acoustic set. It was a rare outing in this form for them these days, given the far-out scope and multi-dimensionality of their sonic adventuring, but exquisitely executed, and a beautifully judged counterpoint to Saturday’s magisterially mind-blowing set in...