Arts / Accordion and fiddle festival opens to packed audience
‘There’s nowhere else that we know of that gathers all ages, and all types of accordion and fiddle music’, says festival vice-chair Una Simpson
THE SHETLAND Accordion and Fiddle Festival (SAFF) held an opening ceremony on Thursday with an afternoon of jigs and polkas from visiting musicians – while some of the event’s long-time fans were honoured too.
Nearly 60 musicians have travelled from the UK mainland, Denmark and Faroe to accompany the 149 local players also performing across the weekend.
This year was opened at Islesburgh in Lerwick by ‘The Super Six’ – a group of fans who have been coming back to Shetland year after year to attend the event.
Sheila Bain, member of the Super Six, has been coming to the SAFF every year since 2007 after being invited by Peggy and Les MacIntosh since they had shared accommodation available.
She said: “We’ve been every year apart from 2020, we even came in 2021. It’s been an honour to be asked to speak.”
The group were invited to speak at this year’s festival six months ago at the Stagger Inn, a dance event in Perth run by Ewan Galloway. Bain said it was an “honour” but added: “We’ve been nervous wrecks since!”
Committee vice-chair and secretary Una Simpson said: “We’ve never had dancers open the festival before, but we thought, why not? They’ve supported us well over the years, so we wanted to make them the main people on the day.”
The ceremony began with a speech from Peter Leask, chairman of the Shetland Accordion and Fiddle Festival, to welcome everyone to this year’s event.
He said: “It’s fine to see so many faces back to see us again, and if it’s your first visit a special welcome to you too.”
Peggy and Les McIntosh were the first speakers, and they have been to every SAFF since 1999. Peggy said they were “humbled and honoured to be asked to open the festival”, and called it “truly staggering”.
Les called the festival “Shetland’s answer to T in the Park”, adding: “Music can be the one real pleasure in an otherwise lonely life.”
Isobel and John Michie spoke next. The couple have been travelling to the festival since around 2004 – although they couldn’t remember the specific date of their first year.
Isobel shared one of her treasured memories over the years was dancing on the car deck of the ferry back from Yell, adding: “That could only happen in Shetland.”
Sheila Bain and Billy Stuart finished off the speeches, with Stuart saying the group couldn’t get over how honoured they were to open the festival. Sheila shared her three most special memories coming up to Shetland for the event.
Nicol McLaren and the Glen Craig band opened the show with a Boston Two Step, before playing the Super Six Waltz by Gordon Shand. Shand wrote it about the group of speakers, and they kept the name.
McLaren said: “I get very emotional when I think about Shetland and it was great to hear from all six of them how they feel about the festival, with as much emotion as we all do.”
The rest of the afternoon was spent with performances from Danish band Kristian Rusbjerg Trio, Charlie Kirkpatrick and Friends, Ian Robertson and David Vernon, while it finished up with Graeme MacKay Scottish Dance Band. They performed a variety of polkas, jigs, and waltzes, setting up the audience for a weekend of music and revelry.
Islesburgh Community Centre acts as the Festival Hub throughout the weekend, with daytime sessions, a festival shop and a bar available during the day and until 2am each night after the concerts.
Leask explained there was a slight change to this year’s format, which sees two of the country music events on Thursday and Friday nights turned into concerts only with no dancing.
He explained this was in case people didn’t want to have a late night on these occasions and the “serious dancers” could go to the two remaining dancing events.
Saturday night will see the Grand Dance held at the Clickimin once more, with 12 bands taking to the stage for a night of Scottish and Shetland dancing.
Simpson summed up the event by saying: “The music and dancing is the focus.
“You’ve got the young players who get a chance to play with musicians they look up to. We’ve got the youth sessions on Saturday afternoon, and play new tunes with different people they wouldn’t normally get to. It’s a great experience.”
This year’s festival runs from 10 to 13 October, finishing up with a closing ceremony held at both the Festival Hub and the Garrison Theatre with a mixture of local and visiting artists playing across both venues.
Tickets are available online on the SAFF website.
Become a member of Shetland News
Shetland News is asking its many readers to consider paying for membership to get additional features and services: -
- Remove non-local ads;
- Bookmark posts to read later;
- Exclusive curated weekly newsletter;
- Hide membership messages;
- Comments open for discussion.
If you appreciate what we do and feel strongly about impartial local journalism, then please become a member of Shetland News by either making a single payment, or setting up a monthly, quarterly or yearly subscription.
Already a member? Sign in to hide this message.
