Just a quick entry as I've as usual managed to get so caught up in the season that I've not had time to update this - every year I vow to schedule myself more days off in the season & every year I look at the diary & see that I've failed as usual. Not quite so bad this year as last - I've had one day off in a five week run of bookings, & I've got the whole weekend off now as it's the Orkney Folk Festival.
Just as well I'm not working today as we were out till 2am this morning - a combination of the 'Orkney Gathering' concert - all local musicians - followed by the Festival Club - the Inter Tunety match between Orkney, represented by the Chair, and Shetland - represented by Fullsceilidh Spelemanslag.
There's a long history of Inter County matches between us & Shetland & last year at the Shetland Folk Festival they held an Inter Tunety which the Chair won - the prize being Fair Isle - & this was the rematch. So we got two cracking sets from the two bands plus lots of extras joining in the fun - members of Broken Strings & Hadhirgaan - & finally both bands giving it their all together - Shetland was declared the winner on the loudest cheers of the audience but all in good fun as some of the Chair were definitely cheering for Shetland! Then of course many encores followed & we got home at 2am.
The Orkney Gathering concert was some good too ('some good' is the highest praise available in Orkney - corresponds roughly to 'they were really unbelievably brilliant'. This compares to the more usual 'no bad' which corresponds to 'very good indeed'). Bob Gibbon & Kris Drever had come up with the idea of an Orkney concert of Orkney folk & Douglas Montgomery of the Chair, Saltfishforty etc etc had sorted it all out - just about every top class musician in Orkney in a supergroup, with the opening act Shoramere - young fiddlers who are all members of our own West Mainland Strathspey & Reel Society either senior or junior. What more can you ask for on a Saturday night.
And to cap it all this afternoon is the Fiddlers Rally - I get to make my very own Folk Festival debut as a very small cog in a very fine festival - & we get Folk Festival artistes passes too. I'll be playing on the same stage as the Chair - albeit not at the same time - I imagine they're mostly still in bed sleeping off last night's excesses.
Had better go now & tune fiddle, rosin bow etc - one day in the far distant future I hope I might aspire to 'no bad' - but at the moment starting & finishing at the same time as everyone else & not dropping either bow or fiddle in between will do me fine
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