Shetland Folk Festival Review from The Scotsman

Published Date: 04 May 2011

By Sue Wilson

Fabulously idiosyncratic, the Shetland Folk Festival again proved a showcase of Scottish island culture befitting its perfect setting; even the weather played its part

THERE could hardly be a more apposite location to celebrate Scotland's Islands (as part of that eponymous year-long promotion) than the Shetland archipelago, which comprises over 100 islands, 15 of them inhabited. Thus it was that the 2011 Shetland Folk Festival - following last year's landmark 30th spree, justly named as Event of the Year at December's Scots Trad Music Awards - featured concerts in no fewer than four of its outlying communities, together with 24 more shows throughout the Shetland Mainland.

The specific Scotland's Islands strand within the programme united acts from the Western Isles (Gaelic singer-songwriter Eilidh Mackenzie, with her band), Orkney (Wrigley and the Reel) and Shetland (multi-instrumentalist whizzkid Ryan Couper, with visiting guitarist/accordionist Tim Edey), for concerts in Lerwick, Unst and Fair Isle - the latter being the UK's northernmost and Shetland's southernmost islands respectively.

With Shetland Islands Council among the very few local authorities not to declare last Friday a holiday, the North Unst Public Hall in Haroldswick (two more ferries and two hours by bus from Lerwick) certainly felt as far removed as possible - without actually leaving the country - from those other festivities 600-odd miles "sooth", as they say round here. Rendering the scene yet more blissfully idyllic was the uncannily beautiful weather: completely cloudless and largely windless all day, a combination as rare as the touch of Unst sunburn acquired on an afternoon walk, taking in sightings of basking seals and frolicking Shetland foals.

In many respects, though, Shetland's remoteness distances it strikingly little from the 21st century mainstream. Upon boarding the boats up to Unst, for instance, electronic signs inform you that the inter-island ferry service is now on Facebook, and that its terminals provide free wireless internet.

Backwater, no. Fabulously idiosyncratic - Unst in particular - emphatically yes. Just check out www.unstbusshelter.shetland.co.uk - an institution lovingly decked out each year according to a different theme ("Underwater" in 2004; "Outer Space" in 2006), offering truly unparalleled passenger amenities and visitor attractions, including the adjacent John Peel Memorial Traffic Island.

Then there's the traditional Shetland yoal - a clinker-built three-man fishing boat - berthed on the grass a mile or so down the road, fitted out in wrought iron to form a gigantic glockenspiel. On Yell, meanwhile, the next island down, a prettily inscribed wooden plaque on the portside toilet block names it "Dunpirlin" - to pirl, in local parlance, being to do what mostly gets done in such facilities.
The 100-strong capacity audience in Unst were treated to a showcase of Scottish island culture vibrantly befitting its perfect setting. Couper and Edey's dazzling, implausibly high-speed workouts, with the Shetlander switching between guitar and fiddle, were complemented by hilariously un-slick stagecraft, as Kent native Edey claimed honorary Yell citizenship and made brave if lamentable attempts at the local dialect. Mackenzie performed mainly self-penned material from two recent themed projects, Saoghal Sona and Bel Canto, interweaving her spun-glass soprano with fiddle, mandolin, guitar and bass, Gaelic idiom with jazz, pop and calypso accents, while paying tribute to tradition in a haunting unaccompanied lullaby/lament from the 16th century. Orcadian twin sisters Jennifer and Hazel Wrigley, on fiddle, guitar and piano, flanked by accordion ace Billy Peace and bassist Ian Mackay, delivered a characteristically scintillating set, from wickedly nimble dance tunes to Jennifer's gorgeously evocative tone-poem Orca.

After their overnight trip to Fair Isle - involving nearly five hours at sea, yet still described by Mackenzie's fiddler Gordon Gunn, who's nigh-on phobic about boat travel, as "just one of the best times ever" - the three acts merged memorably into one for Sunday's finale back in Lerwick. That's when all the visiting performers, this year totalling 17 different line-ups, find themselves shuttled around three separate venues, playing for 15 minutes in each: just one example of the miraculous logistical feats carried off by the festival's all-volunteer team.

"Ever since I got here, I feel like I've just been carried along on this wave of euphoria," exclaimed one tired but exceedingly happy first-time visitor come that final night. Besides the peerless local hospitality, Shetland's swing is fuelled centrally by eclectic musical excellence, not only among the headlining professionals but also the islands' home-grown musicians, filling the support slots and stuck into the myriad after-hours sessions.

Winning an especially wholehearted welcome were such contrasting festival newcomers as St Louis combo Pokey LaFarge and the South City Three, with their brilliantly slick, stylish yet authentically earthy vintage brand of "riverboat soul", and pyrotechnic Scottish piper Fred Morrison; the awesomely accomplished cajun/Americana/pop amalgam of all-sibling foursome L'Angelus and Swedish/Norwegian quintet Sver's lush, panoramic instrumentals.

Then there was the splendid contemporary songcraft and punchy roots-rock arrangements of Findlay Napier and the Bar Room Mountaineers; the jaw-dropping virtuosity of Irish banjo/bodhran duo Gerry O'Connor and Gino Lupari and the trancey, groove-driven soundscapes of Silesian outfit Beltaine, aptly summed by one admiring listener as "a Polish Peatbog Faeries".

Home-team highlights, meanwhile, included Rosanna O'Byrne's bewitching country-folk singing, the dozen-strong Aestaewast's energetic Afro-Cuban drumming, chanting and dancing, and Scalding Bragg's inspired cross-match of tartan punk attire with Pogues-style attack.