Quarterly review two, sort of.

At time of writing I’m at cruising altitude somewhere above Lochaber, with both Mallaig and Fort William obscured by uncommonly uniform cloud cover. Today, from the outstanding perspective afforded to travellers by Loganair, the highlands look more like Antarctica than Scotland. Despite this, the threat of an expertly flicked cigarette arcing all the way into one of the SAAB’s twin engines from outside the Steam Inn still feels very real, and the cloud cover does nothing to dispel my fear of flying over Scotland’s Wild West. 

Freed from the shackles of WiFi and unburdened by the prospect of recreational activities, now seems as good a time as any to commit the last couple of months to text. Having been tasked with teaching guitar at the local Fèis, July began with my inaugural trip to Tiree. There is little ceremony involved in the short flight from Glasgow, so much so that the passengers feel duty-bound to remain vigilant in case asked to steer the vehicle while the pilot unscrews the lid of his Pepsi and phones home. The committee run a brilliant Fèis over there, and you get looked after like a visiting dignitary for the duration of your stay. Having a crack at surfing for the first time in over a decade proved a highlight, although my grand total of zero seconds standing up means that selling all my gear and buying a VW transporter would probably be premature. 

My wetsuit drying in record time in the Tiree breeze

Upon returning to Glasgow, I ironed a shirt and then piled in the car to get to a Bell Rock ceilidh in Inverness, before belting back down the A9 in time to catch a flight bound for Benbecula, where I would be working as second camera on a shoot for Solus Productions. As ever, Solus offered up a varied, fun and thoroughly engaging couple of days. Unsurprisingly, we were met with stereotypically advanced levels of hospitality by contributors and hosts alike. During our visit a local lad was ordained into the priesthood, an event so important that it saw a dozen high-ranking members of the church descend on the island. One flight from Glasgow to Benbecula counted three priests and two bishops among its passengers, which surely qualified it as one of the safest ever instances of airline travel.

At this point halfway through July, I was beginning to feel institutionalised and started to fear that life outwith the care of Loganair would be completely untenable. In an attempt to nip this in the bud I opted to drive rather than fly to the Earagail Arts Festival in Donegal, where I would rendezvous with Josie and Signy so that we could revisit a performance of electronic/Gaelic material we had prepared some months previously. Once you arrive, it’s hard to believe you’ve not landed on a Scottish island. The fact that getting there requires sitting in a ferry canteen for a few hours, coupled with the abundance of peat banks and cars decades out of their MOT makes it seem like google maps erroneously sent you to Harris. The only real giveaway that you’re in Donegal is the funny looking shinty sticks and the lack of bespoke craft shops set up by retirees from Shrewsbury. 

A couple of images from Cnoc Fola, Donegal

We had been asked over to perform two gigs, with one taking place in Gweedore and the other on Arranmore, Ireland’s most populated island. The short three day trip presented the opportunity to gawp at a staggeringly wide range of things, including but not limited to the incredible funk seven-piece Honeyfeet, the ancient granite of Cnoc Fola and the amount of dough Apache Pizza will box up for 12 euros. The trip to the festival was a brilliant opportunity to see an area which might not have been at the top of the holiday list, due in large part to it’s similarity to home. Of course, that’s a moot point as the ‘holiday list’ remains no more explored than the bottom of the Mariana Trench, and on reflection I would still rather be smashing through kilograms of paella in a small Barcelona cafe with everyone staring awkwardly at my alarming third degree sun burn. 

The following week, INYAL departed for Lorient, a massive Celtic festival taking place in Brittany and lasting the best part of a fortnight. We had kindly been asked over by Fèis Rois, and Belhaven had just as kindly laid on an endless supply of free beer and cider backstage. We only had to play one gig a day, with this usually taking place sometime in the wee hours. This left the rest of the day to sleep, eat, indulge in light exercise and play darts, making the festival an extremely positive experience. Upon returning home after the festival and a busy couple of weeks, I enjoyed a few days off and did nothing more taxing than watch Robert Smith and Dave Grohl rip apart Bellahouston Park at the Summer Sessions festival in Glasgow. The Foo Fighters were so good that watching thirty thousand pairs of white Chuck Taylor’s sink to the bottom of six inches of mud was only the second most entertaining thing happening within the arena. Anyone comfortable enough to enjoy the band, meaning anyone who had arrived looking like they were about the take on the West Highland Way, was treated to a masterclass in live performance that marked one of the city’s best gigs of the year. I’d wager that Dave Grohl didn’t have time to drive up the coast and take a load of landscape photos though, so it’s impossible to measure which of us had a more successful festival summer.

The INYAL massive after the last Lorient performance