Pàdraig at Piping Live

PIPING LIVE

First up this month was Fèis Lannruig a Tuath, which was held in Cumbernauld. This was my 5th year in a row teaching for them and it was a very action packed week. Thanks to Elaine Spence and the rest of the Fèis committee for having me again.

The following week I was on home turf again, at Piping Live Festival. This festival has been growing rapidly in reputation and I had 5 gigs as part of their Music of the Clans series, organised and orated by Simon McKerrell. The concerts proved popular with locals and tourists alike as we played to a packed tent every day, and interest from BBC Alba who interviewed me in Gaelic about the festival. Muggins here also had the job of promoting Pàdraig O’Neill & Simon McKerrell’s band “Rough Tides” as the band’s tshirt model and vendor!!!  But in all seriousness the band is going from strength to strength and I’d thoroughly recommend a listen. A big thanks to Simon McKerrell and Roddy MacLeod for having us.

Nordsjofestivalen

The following week I drove to Edinburgh to do some session recording on the singer- songwriter  Iain Thomson’s album, which was great fun as I got to try out lots of weird harmonies! Keep an eye out for that album coming out…

ARGYLL RHAPSODY

I also started work on several performance projects in the last fortnight. First up is a project by Donald Shaw entitled “The Argyll Rhapsody”. This is a revisit of an educational project I was involved in during 2007, and involves working with teenagers

from Lochgilphead High School over the course of the next month, using existing traditional songs and also music written by Donald himself,to culminate in 2

concerts at the end of October. The last Rhapsody show was great fun and resulted in some great press reviews so I’m looking forward to the final gigs, which are looking to be the 28th/29th Oct. Keep an eye out for these gigs on the News page…

TRANSFORM GLASGOW

Also I’m pleased to be working as part of a theatre show called “Transform Glasgow”, based in an arts centre in Easterhouse, Glasgow. It is a community based show run by The National Theatre of Scotland, and I will be tutoring a group of young singers with no previous experience in Gaelic song to result in a string of shows in November. This is a very creative and diverse community orientated project, and I’m delighted to be part of something a little closer to home turf too! Check out www.platform-online.co.uk for more details and also keep an eye on the News page for updated gig times.

NORWAY

Maeve & Jackie Oates band

Last week I had the pleasure of jetting off to Norway for a number of gigs at the fantastic North Sea Festival (Nordsjofestivalen) in Farsund. This is a fantastic festival, and is very community based, their motto being “Where People Meet Folk”, which meant a very lively and relaxed environment where bands and audience hung out together during and after the gigs. For this festival I took guitarist Mike Bryan (Treacherous Orchestra) out with me and he did a great job. We were also lucky to meet some fantastic bands out there, including the mighty Swedish band Ranarim, the lovely Jackie Oates and her band, and also got to hear some great Norwegian music such as the singer Kim Andre Rysstad, who totally blew me away. We had an eventful and adventure-filled Sunday getting to the airport at the end of the week as some of us had been enjoying ourselves so much they didn’t want to go home… but I’d like to say a huge thank you to Knut Egil, Tor, Thomas, and the other festival organisers for having us, and I’d be delighted to go back anytime. For now though, it’s back to the joys of rainy Glasgow…