The rest of the story (I hope)

Well Keith Music Festival was quite an eye opener. It is run on a completely different system to that which we are used to in NZ. The system works in a little place well but not likely to in spread out NZ. You buy a ticket for an evening concert (£6) and the acts move from venue to venue while the audience stays put. The turn around time for the acts to set up and knock down is phenomenal. The organisers in NZ could surely learn from it.

So the punters have a list of who is playing at what venue and you choose accordingly.
Also there are Trad music competitions run with an awful lot of silver ware handed out. They have big classes too.

One of the comments which we fielded in Inverness, which we din'ae oonderstand at t' time was that we would not be able to understand the lingo in Keith. This area does not have the soft Highland accent which is associated with Inverness and the Western Isles but still use Doric which is the dialect in which Rabbie Burns writes. There were a number of poets who recited in Doric - some of which I could pick up but some was well beyond me. It was totally beyond Glenda, needless to say. So we started her a phonetic 'dictionary' on the back of one of the concert sheets. It was getting mighty full by the time we left.

If you heard the words 'quine' and 'loon', what you think they meant? Answer at the end of the post (haha).

But this is the sort of thing I am meaning about the dialect. There is a push for it to be taught in the schools, so that it does not get lost. It is different from the Gaelic and would be the Scottish equivalent of speaking 'Irish' as opposed to Irish Gaelic.

During the day there were sessions going on all over the village. The musicians moved around from one pub to the next so you could either follow the musos that you liked or you could just stay where you were to wait and see who turned up next.

Accordions and fiddles ruled supreme. The accordions players were mostly all young guys, and boy could they really make the music bounce. The tradition is a live, well and assured of success in this area at least. The fiddlers were from the very young to antique and everywhere in between. The were great and enough to make you spit, so to speak. Only one melodeon player and he came from above Newcastle. Guitarists of course, a couple of banjos and one mandola. Two of the groups had keyboard players. They were doing the trad piano accompaniment found with Scots ceilidh music. They were both good, but one guy was truly excellent - and his claim to fame is that he is actually last year's winner of the Glennfiddich Fiddler of the Year. If his keyboard skills are only his 'second fiddle' so to speak then his fiddle playing must be totally awesome.

There was also a harper there who also sang as she played. She did quite a few songs in Gaelic. Interestingly enough she spent several seasons singing with Scottish National Opera, so she has a beautiful, trained voice. After her family left home she went back to Uni (she already had a music degree) to do a one year course in Gaelic, so that she could understand what she was actually singing about. Instead of just doing the one year her arm was twisted and she stayed on to do a Masters for which she translated/wrote current music theory into Gaelic. Sadly she does/did not have a CD :( She performed an absolutely stunning rendition of 'Call the Ewes'. Oh, but to dream....

On the Sunday there was an outside concert in the village square. Fortunately for all, not only did the rain stop but the sun came out and helped the sales of the ice cream van.

By the last night Glenda and I were absolutely tired out. It was so worth the effort of going. We created quite a stir - being the first people to ever go to the Keith Festival from NZ. Indeed I suspect that we were the first people to ever attend outside of the UK.

As one of the organisers said the festival tends to be a little incestuous in so far that the performers are all very local to the venue and they all front up each year. The performer from furthest away is the guy with the melodeon. AND they do not get paid. They do get free accommodation and food but that is is.

So we were asked many times 'have you really just come to Keith for the festival?' The answer to which was 'yes'. This really gobsmacked quite a few.

On the Sunday afternoon there was after the outdoor concert, a session which was a Chorus Competition. It was really neat fun, something which I am going to suggest would be worth looking at in NZ. The 'judging' is on the level of audience participation in the choruses as opposed to the actual performance quality. The guy who 'won' it sang a song to the tune of John Brown's Body, the chorus went:

I am a week end caravanner
I am a week end caravanner
I am a week end caravanner
And I am driving on a road near you

The verses were really funny and very relevant to the chorus.

The 'judges' were also open to 'bribes'. It made for a great, fun afternoon. Most of the singers were unaccompanied. In fact all of the real trad 'Bothy Ballad' singers sang unaccompanied as is traditional. Heard some exceptional singing. Just reinforces the level of crap in the media.

Headed back to Inverness on Monday morning as we had to get the car back for 2pm and to the bus station by 3. Inverness was really, really busy so I drove to that car hire firm and their driver took us and our bags to the bus station.

The bus station was absolutely packed to the gunwales. Rockness had been on the previous 3 days (an outdoor Rock Concert at the top end of Loch Ness) so there were people everywhere with their packs and camping gear all trying to get buses back to where ever. The cafe obviously didn't see the influx coming as there was no food left by the time we got there. I had to make do with a packet of crisps and a twix bar.

The bus trip down was great as the road travels much higher than the train lines so I was able to see much more of the countryside. There is also a big road works happening on the A9 so the driver took us on a diversion which took us through some very narrow winding roads which I would not have wanted to try taking a bus through. I found out when we got off in Edinburgh that the bus also had back wheel steering, which explained everything.

Glenda went off to her hostel for the night and I made my way back to Bonnyrigg to Cousin Drew's place.


Yesterday I met up with Glenda and we went on the free walking tour of Edinburgh. Very interesting and extremely entertaining. Our guide was a young guy from Melbourne. It would appear that all the guides are from 'other countries'. Job doesn't pay enough for a Scot to do it I suspect. I don't know whether the guides are out of work actors, or just excellent performers, but great, great fun.

Glenda is now on her way to Glasgow. This will be my last post until I reach home, when I will be able to put my pics up, unless there is free Internet access at the various airports I transit. Somehow I doubt very, very much that LAX is likely to have any Internet access in the transit lounge - after all there could be a conspiracy afoot....

Quine is a female (girl or young woman)
Loon is a male (boy or young man) and has nothing to do with being 'looney' as in madly influenced by lunar aspect, although I have no doubt that looney loons are a regular occurence.

BTW they have boy racers in Inverness as well.