Piping Live! Day 3 – a piob crawl

big music, with Colin MacLellan delivering a terrific talk in connection with his recently-released book and CD, The Compositions of Captain John A. MacLellan MBE. This was an illumination – Colin MacLellan’s heartfelt and sincere recollection of the original piobaireachds by his father, illustrated

both through the on-screen photos and MacLellan and wife, the top-tier piper Jenny Hazzard, playing of several of the pieces on bagpipes once played by “The Captain” himself. This was a special hour indeed. Here was a great piper, discussing his father’s music, his own family, with his wife providing musical examples, his daughter in the audience, putting forward music that within a few decades is likely to be just as often played as some of the “classic” piobaireachds. Colin MacLellan observed at one point that the “modern” ceol mor compositions of his father and Donald MacLeod combined comprise more original music than the whole of the MacCrimmon dynasty. Interesting, that.

In Pipe Idol round three, 18-year-old John Campbell went through to the Thursday Grand Final, edging out other fine performances from James Dyson (Canada, 19), Kian Johnson (Germany, 15) and Douglas Muir (Scotland, 17), with an overflow crowd seeping out of the Street Café marquee, willing to endure the rain to take the show.

There were tons more sessions going on throughout the day, including the usual steady stream of bands performing at George Square, getting in and out of the rain, as the lucky few thousand who had tickets of the standing-room-only IMPACT concert from Field Marshal Montgomery wrapped up the day in ultra-fine form at the Glasgow Royal Concert Hall (check out the review), and, for the sensible people competing on the weekend, off to a decent bedtime.

As for the rest of us . . .

Stay tuned!