Skipinnish: The Past, Present and Future of Scottish Traditional Music

Skipinnish Live at the Barrowlands 15th October 2021. Picture: Donald Erskine

Skipinnish are a Scottish Traditional Music institution; the band conceived by founding members Angus MacPhail and Andrew Stevenson in 1999 keeps going from strength to strength. Their 22-year-long span has seen them go from a duo to a line-up on stage involving up to eight or nine musicians at a time. The size of the band increasing has reflected their popularity, and the band is now a headline act performing to crowds of up to 4,500!

On the 15th of October, they returned to Glasgow’s Barrowland Ballroom in style; the ballroom floor was the perfect scene for them to play out their island-infused tunes. The 1,900 people capacity venue felt like one big Hogmanay party, and the crowd danced and bounced on the springy, wooden floor as they lapped up the high-tempo and high-energy songs.

Norrie MacIver the guitarist, frontman and lead singer for the band, navigated their expansive and diverse setlist with ease; small interjections from MacPhail along the way added dedications for certain songs. The band seamlessly navigates between purely instrumental songs, then between English and Gaelic sung numbers with an interlude consisting of MacIver performing an encapsulating stream of traditional Gaelic Garb songs or ‘mouth music (Puirt-à-beul)’. It is definitely worth checking out as it will be like nothing you’ve heard before.

The Barrowland Ballroom ceiling. Picture: Donald Erskine

Living in Tiree is clearly a big influence on MacPhail’s song writing for Skipinnish. Each song seems to ebb and flow like the tide, or rapturous stormy sea! Songs such as ‘Alive’ and ‘The Island’ showing off the full dynamics they hold in their arsenal. The irrefutable toe-tap-inducing wave of guitar, drums, accordion, bass, and bagpipes are used to their full potential.

It’s no wonder that Skipinnish have won countless awards in their time; the most recent and prestigious of these being “Scots Trad Live Act of the Year 2017” which proudly adorns their website. They also paid homage to the (now retired) ancestors of popular Scottish traditional music, Runrig, with a cracking cover of ‘Alba’- a song they know well and featured on their 2017 album, ‘The Seventh Wave’. While MacPhail and co. occupy a different space in the music scene than Runrig did. It would not surprise me if they one day reach the same heights and popularity – they’re certainly good enough.

After adoring cheers from the crowd, the encore was soon upon us. As is commonplace, Skipinnish finished strong with their best hit ‘Walking on The Waves’; an anthem for the modern-day Scottish Trad fan, which was sung in a deafening chorus back to them. A fitting and poignant end to the night, sealing off another successful venture to Glasgow for the island dwellers.

Overall, it was a brilliant night’s entertainment in a venue fit for the Ceilidh that consumes the crowd once the band get into full swing. If you want to dip your toe into the Skipinnish ocean – and I fully recommend that anyone does – then you can catch them back at the Barrowlands on Saturday 4th December 2021: tickets can be found here.