Moniaive Folk Festival Part 1

Now, I'm resisting the temptation to call Moniaive a sleepy wee village because for all I know there could be wild and interesting goings on there every night of the week. All I can tell you for certain, is that last weekend it certain was not sleepy, despite it's appearance in this picture - it's the standard postcard shot of the village as far as I can see, over the bridge at the George Hotel.

It was time for the annual folk festival there, and having just got back from work I decided to commute from Kirkcudbright for the first day. Just as well I left with plenty of time to spare before the evening concert as I got quite lost on the way over. Galloway is a maze of little back roads and if you pick the right ones you can knock a lot of your travelling time. I didn't and ended up in Dumfries - I might as well have driven there in the first place. Anyway, enough of this navigation ramble and on with the concert.

First up was a young and very fine, local piper, Oliver Rigg

This was followed by tunes of an Irish nature and the odd song from Killultagh, from Northern Ireland. I notice that their Myspace page, here, has some of their music that you can listen to on it.

Alistair Ogilvy was one of the finalists in this years BBC Young Traditional Musician of the year. I'm not sure how this link will work for people outside the UK so incase it doesn't work here he is on Youtube with Darcy Carson who accompanied him at Friday's concert

The main act on Friday night was the Emily Smith band. Emily must be the most successful musician from the area right now and with good reason I my say. There's no end of her on Youtube so here's two goodies here and here

Still time after the concert for a bit of playing myself. There were two sessions going on in the George Hotel and two in the Craigdarroch, I settled on this session of mainly songs in the Craigdarroch.

I managed to get lost on the way home too!