News / Plane cancellation put paid to Ryder gig
HUNDREDS of music fans in Shetland were left disappointed after legendary Happy Mondays singer Shaun Ryder’s Saturday night concert at Mareel with his 20 year old band Black Grape was cancelled due to bad weather in Aberdeen.
Ryder and his ten fellow band members and crew sat at Aberdeen airport for five hours waiting for their 10.15am flight to be called after travelling north from Manchester, only to be told it was not going to fly.
No one was more upset than concert promoter Alan McLeod of Klub Revolution, who had the same experience when Ryder was last due to play in Shetland with the Happy Mondays in 2012, only to pull out at the last minute due to illness.
However McLeod remains undeterred and hopes to be able to arrange an alternative Black Grape date at Mareel before the summer is over.
“Hopefully it will be third time lucky,” he said. “I have already spoken to their manager and agent to see if they have any free dates over the next few months.”
McLeod said there had been a “buzz” around Lerwick after advance ticket sales started to pick up.
Ryder was so keen to come to Shetland, he said, that he had even considered chartering a plane for the occasion.
Now the promoter is left wondering if he will be able to fly to Aberdeen himself on Sunday where he is promoting the Black Grape concert at the city’s Beach Ballroom.
He added that the lack of a reliable air service to and from Shetland made it more and more unpredictable whether he would be able to get a band up to play in the isles.
A spokeswoman for Highlands and Islands Airports Ltd said the main problem had been in Aberdeen and that planes from Edinburgh and Glasgow had made it north.
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