News & Reviews

Shetland Folk Festival: Late Nights, Legends and Magic

AMIDST today’s embarrassment of riches, it’s hard to recall just how small and straitened the folk scene was back in 1981. Two years into the first Thatcher government, folk song at least still rang out defiantly from the redoubts of trade unionism and the peace movement, while the folk club network was also staunchly dug in.

Read

30th Shetland Folk Festival

Picture the long daylight hours of the boreal summer, 15 top class bands from around the world and as many local outfits. Then picture host of venues across Britain’s most northerly land, closer culturally and physically to the Faroes and Bergen than to Edinburgh or London, and you start to understand what gives the annual Shetland Folk Festival its own unique and very special atmosphere.

Read

Music review: 30th Shetland Folk Festival

THE tagline on the commemorative beer mat reads "No sleep since 1981" – that being when the Shetland Folk Festival first took place, ensuring an extra-almighty spree for this year's 30th.

Read