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!
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