An excellent Tiree Gathering concert
It is not very often I have weekend nights to myself so I was delighted to have made it along to both the Tiree Gathering concert and dance last Thursday and Friday evenings.
In a change to the usual Partick Burgh Halls, the concert was held in the beautiful Hyndland Parish Church. It was an absolutely freezing cold evening but the music was tremendous.
Chairman DI Brown, who spoke passionately about how the island’s culture and language has shaped him and featured throughout his career, seemed to welcome star turn after star turn to the stage all evening.
The instrumentalists (Gordon Rowan on the pipes, Sean 'Buddha Beag' MacCallum on the box, and Kirsteen Grant on piano) had everyone either tapping their feet or singing along – particularly to Kirsteen’s selection of Scots and Gaelic tunes. The solo singing was totally brilliant.
Kirsty MacKinnon, Ruairidh Cormack, and Ellen
MacDonald (all of whom I’ve heard many times before) genuinely all seemed to bring their A game.
A real highlight was Kirsty’s version of the beautiful Tiree song Òganaich an Òir Fhuillt Bhuidhe.
It wasn’t the only Tiree song she sang – she also sang a couple of songs that her grandmother (who hailed from Tiree) used to sing – and all of them went down very well indeed with the audience.
Ruairidh was also in fantastic voice (hands firmly in his pockets, just like his father, Arthur!) and had the audience swinging away to Fàgail Bharraigh among other crackers.
Ellen very successfully tested out a new song for her called Ho ro Bhodachain – inspired by the singing of the MacDonald sisters all those years ago.
It was a tremendous concert, enjoyed fully by those in the audience but also by a large contingent watching on Facebook live; many, no doubt, back in Tiree on this incredibly cold November night.