Tiree Music Festival
THE eighth Tiree Music Festival has been hailed as another fantastic success with thousands of people coming to be part of a fun-packed weekend of top class entertainment, good food and great craic.
Tiree Music Festival welcomed the most campers over its eight years, with an increased capacity family campsite, campervan site and glamping tents all being sold out. More campers than before also stayed on the island for the full five nights that the campsites were open.
The weekend finished with a day full of sunshine but the first night of the festival brought with it rain and wind and a few campers were displaced due to their tents being affected by the weather.
Once again, TMF went out of its way to ensure these campers were re-homed and a large group from Bremen, London, Lesmahagow and Bridge of Allan were all provided with an alternative tent to sleep in on Friday and Saturday night before the TMF team helped them repair their own tent on Sunday.
The island’s new Tyree Gin was officially launched at this year’s festival and was such a hit with the TMF audience that the festival and every shop on the island ran out of tonic. The new addition to the Hebridean gin is a true taste of Tiree with the flavour coming from six local botanicals.
The weekend kicked off on Friday with a full house for a number of local bands. The audience then enjoyed music from CalMac culture winners The Sea Atlas, enthusiastic five-piece Dosca, singer-songwriter Marianne Fraser, The Saw Doctors Anto, young and energetic folk band Heron Valley, Glasgow’s Have Mercy Las Vegas, singer-songwriter Dean Owens and his trio, Ireland’s Jig Jam, crowd-pleasers Jam Sandwich and, finally, the night finished with a bang with the island’s own Skipinnish.
Saturday welcomed Scottish legend Dougie MacLean, who is one of Scottish’s longest serving performers with more than 40 years under his belt. On the newer end of her musical career, TMF also welcomed Tamzene, the first signing to new label Belladrum Records, who wowed the crowds with her amazing vocals. Tide Lines celebrated their first birthday with an energetic audience after performing their first gig at last year’s festival. The second night drew to a close with million selling British pop band Scouting for Girls who went down a storm.
Sunday opened with the sun shining and the legendary Gunna Sound revving up the crowd. England’s Gentlemen of Few performed their last gig of the festival and Highland born accordionist and founding member of Mànran, Gary Innes performed.
Multi-award winning Skerryvore, who formed on Tiree in 2004, closed the festival with a lively crowd singing, cheering and foot-stomping.
As a preview to the festival TMF followed the journey of some festival go-ers on the way to this year’s festival, you can watch their journeys to the beautiful island here - https:// youtu.be/iMzLYFBE65M
TMF director Stewart MacLennan said: ‘ This year has been amazing. The audience has been one of the best yet and the acts that performed have been unforgettable.
‘The sunshine finally came out for us but we were really pleased to be able to help the campers who needed it on Friday night. I’d like to take this opportunity to thank our 100-strong team of volunteers, some of whom took a number of the tent-less fam- ilies into their own homes on Friday night. Without them, the festival would not be possible and we really can’t thank them enough.’
The full 2017 line-up included Scouting for Girls, Dougie MacLean, FunBox, Skipinnish, Skerryvore, Tide Lines, Siobhan Miller, Gary Innes, JigJam, Gunna Sound, Trail West, Heron Valley, Gentlemen of Few, Have Mercy Las Vegas, Dean Owens and The Whisky Hearts, Dosca, Jam Sandwich, Cornaig Ceilidh Band, Dùn Mòr, The Defenders, Tamzene, Sophie Rogers, Marianne Fraser and The Sea Atlas.