Festival Blog

For bookers and bands alike, there can be efficiencies gained when one musician features in two line-ups – but there can also be pitfalls, as was the case today for one such dual member of Gnoss and Trip, who respectively played this afternoon’s Sunday Supplement, at Stromness Town Hall, and the Sunday Best show in Finstown. Following some last-minute running-order adjustment, after organisers realised they’d scheduled our man to be in both places at once, this has resulted in a decidedly gruelling day’s double duty, starting with an early Town Hall soundcheck, followed by soundcheck and gig at Finstown, then a fast cab back to play the actual Stromness gig – before twin repeat performances for both Farewell Concerts tonight. Which would have been a seriously tough timetable even had he not spent the previous afternoon/evening wholeheartedly embracing the festival, after playing The Gathering: Generations show, taking in a full round of the sessions before heading Academy-wards for The Stomp.

Come this morning at the Town Hall, he was thus experiencing that Sunday feeling in full measure, sitting mostly with head in hands while the sound crew and his colleagues did...

Yesterday afternoon’s Orkney Tipple concert at Quoyloo, featuring that inimitable musical chronicler Findlay Napier, wasn’t actually intended as proof that the Folk Festival can organise a knees-up in a brewery, but seemingly some audience members’ levels of merriment – even allowing for Findlay’s frequently side-splitting material – suggested they’d interpreted it as such, and were taking full advantage of the local craft brews on offer. Having contended with their rising volume of ribaldry during the show, however, Findlay was ultimately the winner when one of this bibulous number, spoilt for choice between the various CDs and songbooks on sale, decided he’d just take the lot, departing the premises some £70 lighter.

As you may know, Findlay’s younger brother Hamish is also a highly-regarded musician, who arrived at the festival yesterday as part of fiddler Duncan Chisholm’s band. Given that both now live in Glasgow, this fraternal reunion was hardly a major occasion, but coming to Orkney has given both the chance to reconnect with Gavin Cullen, treasurer and general linchpin of the current Folk Festival Committee – and also a member of the original such board, who founded the event 36...

Musicians the world over are well-known for their somewhat scatterbrained tendencies, and yesterday yielded the 2018 festival’s first fruit of this proclivity. Having arrived at her home festival after completing an entire US tour without any such issues, Orkney’s own Kristan Harvey, of Fara fame, managed to get all the way out to Evie before realising she was sans fiddle, and had no idea whether she’d left it in the street or her hotel room.

Thankfully it turned up in the latter, so fiddler and instrument were reunited in time for the show, after an extra round trip back to Stromness by an obliging festival rep. (Quite how you set off to play a concert minus the very object you’re due to be playing, without some internal alarm-bell going off, is a question we’ll leave for another day.) Meanwhile keeping up the boys’ end in the flakiness stakes, Ímar piper Ryan Murphy blithely left his phone behind in Burray, but it was spotted by the sound crew during the get-out, and safely delivered back to him in Stromness. Just as well some of us are on the ball. . .

Talking of...

The warmest of Orkney welcomes to one and all, visitors and locals both, as the county’s world renowned folk festival kicks off its 36^th outing tonight, presenting the first six concerts – in Stromness, Stenness, Burray and Evie – from the weekend’s mouthwatering tally of 35 programmed events, including ceildhs, workshops, talks and free performances, in 20 different venues across the islands.

For the fifth consecutive year, the festival’s advance sales have broken new records: 6200 tickets had been snapped up by yesterday, representing almost 90 percent of overall capacity, and 20 complete selllout events – so if your musical dance-card’s not already full, you’d better be quick. And if you’re still to arrange accommodation, we hope you like camping – or are prepared to travel, as every bed in Stromness and for miles around has long since been bagged.

Alongside the main concert programme, there is of course Orkney Folk Festival’s (in)famous schedule of pub sessions throughout the weekend, hosted as ever by the stalwart triumvirate of the Royal Hotel, the Stromness Hotel and the Ferry Inn, all conducively situated mere stumbling-distance apart. These informal gatherings will feature many...