News & Reviews
Shetland Folk Festival
It's early on a Saturday morning at the festival club, and I find my feet along with hundreds of others crammed around the tiny main stage, pounding the floor to the irresistible harmonies and driving rhythms of homegrown folk heroes Fiddler's Bid. The entire room shakes with a collective rhythm that seems like it will never stop. The intimacy with the musicians is so profound, yet the sound is big enough to fill any stadium, and for a moment it seems as if this may well last forever as reel after reel builds further exhilaration among the crowd. Meanwhile, there's a man in a cap dancing on the monitors, who I recognize as the percussionist from visiting Estonian band Vägilased; suggestive of the international treasure that this festival has become.
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A certain English newspaper recently described Shetland as “the most depressing place in the British isles”. It’s certainly not a label that anyone attending the islands’ legendary annual folk festival would recognise. Even the weather smiled on this year’s 26th bacchanal, with a rare settled spell of sunshine extending throughout the weekend.
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