Ceilidh Trail highlights! (Pt 2)

Greetings!

So we return to my 2014 Ceilidh Trail highlights. To continue in linear order (note that these are not completely in order of preference), the next gig I shall highlight is

 Glasgow Green

I think it's safe to say this was the biggest stage I've ever played on...

This wasn't it on the day, there were actually people there when we were. 

But here we are looking quite the part in our swanky blue Lochaber Ceilidh Trail tshirts (which, I'll admit, did take some time to grow on me):

So this gig was obviously memorable due to the scale of it and also because it was just pretty cool to be part of the Commonwealth Games which obviously isn't something that comes round too often, so we were quite lucky. However, each group (Cairngorms Ceilidh Trail, Argyll Ceilidh Trail, and us) only played for, what, 8 minutes each I think? Which doesn't sound like a lot but we also did a big joint set at the end, which went okay I think considering we'd only had one practice at it together beforehand, aha. We were also on a bit of a tight time schedule that day, after taking the minibus down to Balloch, getting the train from there to Glasgow and then having to walk through the bustling city centre in the icky sticky heat with instruments in hand. 

AND THEN...

We had to literally run away from Glasgow Green, obviously not quick enough though because our impatient taxi drivers went away without us, thus leaving us to speed-walk back to the train on which multiple sessions were had! Which was pretty cool. I personally didn't join in because I was too tired but the tourists (and locals probably, too) were LOVING it. 30 traditional musicians crammed into a train for an hour or so; it was bound to happen. I actually heard a lady exclaim as we all piled off of the train "There's so many of them!" which I found amusing as it was as if we were some kind of different species that had infested the carriages.

So all of this rushing about was to get back to Loch Lomond shores where we all joined Breabach onstage! Despite it being literally for about 3-4 minutes at the end of their set and only a few people being able to grab mics if they could reach one, it was still a good experience. Breabach are one of my favourite bands and it's pretty cool to be able to say we've played with them. 

And to finish off this highlight, I present you with a photo that I found particularly scary:

Glenfinnan

The next gig that stood out for me was our night time session in Glenfinnan House Hotel. I am no stranger to music sessions here and they're usually always great nights to be had but this one in particular on the 31st of July was kind of extra special for me, aha. The whole day actually was because... *drumroll* I passed my driving test! Woop woop. I was obviously stoked on that for the rest of the day so that night I went and picked up the boyf myself and drove to Glenfinnan to have nice meal beforehand with some of my fam. AND THENNNN to top off a great day/night, not only was this the last gig with all 8 of us (Ewen was leaving us to go on holiday) but my good pals Kevin and Natalie who did the Ceilidh Trail last year showed up too! I hadn't seen or played with them in aages and was so so happy to see them. I guess I just generally had a really enjoyable night overall, I hope everyone else did too!

The only picture I have of that night is a very poor quality selfie of Kevin, Natalie and I looking very, very happy:

                                      Photobomb?

       Isle of Eigg

I have no idea why we didn't go here last time. 

This was my first trip to the Isle of Eigg, and, like Muck, the weather was great! People should go to the Small Isles more often. So beautiful. 

After a day of sleeping on the ferry over, lunching at Eigg's only cafe and then hanging out at our surprisingly nice accomodation, we headed over on foot to the hall where there was a sound man already waiting to set us all up. This is always good because we don't have to do much and they actually know what they're doing... 

The hall was so nice though! It was all in the forest and wooden and had pretty paper decorations hanging around the place and lots of, like, organicy eco-ey stuff as Eigg is the first place to be completely powered by renewable energy- woop!

The concert/ceilidh itself was great too, with a good turnout and very enthusiastic dancers. (I have heard that they are eager partiers on Eigg).

And that kind of leads us onto the bird man...

When we were first on our way to our house we came across a couple of girls who asked us if we'd happened to see a man dressed as a bird at all... Understandably we apologized and said no we hadn't with slight confusion and amusement, then brushed it off and continued on our way. But then later on when we were mid ceilidh and the floor was full, something caught my eye and right enough, there he was: the Bird Man. He was dancing about the hall quite the thing in his feathery suit, beak and all.

I even spoke to a nice American lady in the break who was very bewildered about the Bird Man and told us that nobody had even blinked an eye when he entered, yet nobody actually knew his story. I guess they just accepted it.

(I'm hoping this video actually works as I am still new to this blogging business and it's being a bit weird)

I also wish I got a proper video because, as you can see, this was saved from my snapchat but it's the only evidence I have of the mysterious Bird Man.

AND SO

my 2014 Ceilidh Trail highlights come to an end. There were so many other good experiences and great things that happened but these are just the ones that stood out for me. 

I hope this has entertained you a little and it will hopefully not be as long until my next post as I have been kept very busy with lots of other gigs recently!

Adios!

I'm not sure what my privacy settings are like on Facebook, but just in case you missed it there, here's a link to my beautiful photo album of sleeping Ceilidh Trailers which I take great pride in:

https://www.facebook.com/lauren.byrne.165/media_set?set=a.917732764919776.1073741828.100000491831407&type=3

Ceilidh Trail highlights! (Pt 1)

Well, well, well

I was kind of planning on keeping an account of the 2014 Ceilidh Trail while it was happening but I'm quite happy that I didn't because I don't think would've had the energy or concentration to even construct one simple sentence during the past 3 weeks due to how drained I was from the tour. 

So for those of you who don't really know, the Ceilidh Trail is put together by Feisean nan Gaidhael and it's basically a ceilidh band (with a maximum of 8 members) that different people, aged 16-25, can audition for each year and they go on tour around their area for maybe 3 or 4 weeks in the summer. It changes each year. So there are many ceilidh trails for different areas of Scotland, for example Lochaber (woo!) or Stirling or Argyll and loads loads more. 

This year they TOTALLY crammed in the gigs for us, with us only having one day off in the whole 3 weeks, including 2 gigs a day sometimes and a few overnight stays. We had, say, like, 20 gigs overall? It was hard going but also extremely fun! And since I did it last year and enjoyed it so much I found it hard not to keep comparing this year's to last's, though I wouldn't be able to make a decision to say which was better because I kind of knew what to expect this time and there were different people and different gigs and what not, so they were different, yes, but I enjoyed them the same for all different reasons!

Since there were so many gigs and so much that happened throughout the whole tour, I won't bore you completely with my account of the whole entire thing (plus I think that would be impossible for me to type out) so I'll pick out my personal highlights of this year. 

        Arisaig - Astley Hall

Monday the 21st of July was our first proper concert gig (the others before were all sessiony) and the reason I liked this one is largely because of the overall success of the gig! Considering it was pretty much all us- we just hired the hall and got on with it. We did have our good parents helping out with raffle tickets/drinks etc. which was handy. So we did some of our arranged concert sets at the beginning then moved on to a proper ceilidh, which were both well attended largely thanks to our local Arisaig fiddler Eddie (3rd along) who got all his pals to come, and who seemed to get a noticeably louder cheer than the rest of us when the band was introduced...  

            Isle of Muck

For those unsure of the location/size of Muck, here is where it is and how we got there (with a nice big handy and probably unnecessary red arrow)

 

It's pretty darn tiny! 

Although we got such good weather for Muck! The reason I liked this one so much was probably not so much for the gig itself but for the swimming! We basically just hung out at our own wee private beach all day, which isn't actually as seaweedy as it might look. It was so, so nice- almost felt like we were abroad. However a few of us, who are probably so used to swimming in rivers and freshwater lochs, may have forgotten that the sea happens to be a wee bit salty... bleh. And the people of Muck are so friendly and hospitable- I think most small communities tend to be. I so wanted to stay longer there!

And here we all are on the ferry over, featuring our new friend in the centre, the King of Photobombing. He totally wanted to be in the band.

Aaaaand I'll stop here for now and continue with my favourites in my next post because I don't want to rush it and cram it all in at once. I'd say there's another 2, maybe 3 gigs I'll highlight, including when we played at the Commonwealth Games! 

So bye for now, and I hope this was at least a little bit interesting to read!

To be continued................. (haha)

I stole a few of these photos from fellow band members, hope y'all don't mind!