Atlantic Edge Music Services

Tall Ships Music Programme

June 1, 2011

From 21st to 24th July this year the Tall Ships Races 2011 - organised by Sail Training International and presented by Szczecin - will visit Lerwick, together with several other port locations around Shetland prior to actually arriving in Lerwick itself.

Around 70 large sailing ships from around the world will be in port during this time, with over 3000 international crew members expected into the bargain.

A full entertainment programme to coincide with this visit has been planned with, perhaps inevitably for Shetland, music at it's very heart.

Headlining the event will be international festival favourites the 'Levellers', who play the Holmsgarth stage on Friday evening with a show celebrating the 20th anniversary of their seminal and chart topping album 'Levelling the Land', while on Saturday evening the global sensation that are 'Bjorn Again' - performing the greatest hits of Abba - will round off the Holmsgarth stage for our 'Family Party Night'.

A veritable host of returning Shetland / visiting artists are also set to appear at the event, including the Catriona Macdonald Band, Aly Bain (with regular sidekick Phil Cunningham of course) Jenna Reid Band, Rock Salt & Nails, Inge Thomson Band and Astrid Williamson - again to name but a few - with Orkney power-trio 'Saltfishforty' also making a guest appearance.

Over and above this no less than 67 local artists and groups, incorporating literally hundreds of muscians and spanning all musical genres, will perform across two large outdoor stages located at Holmsgarth and Victoria Pier in Lerwick over the four day period. This will include the likes of Fullsceilidh Spelemannslag, Scaldin Bragg, Hom Bru, Bryan Gear & Violet Tulloch, Sheila Henderson Band, The Revellers, Malachy Tallack Band, Judi Nicolson, No Sweat, Shetland Heritage Fiddlers, First Foot Soldiers Donald Anderson Band, Jamieson's Big Pockets, Fabulous Ramstams, Kolliforbolli, May & Mackie, Jillian Isbister & David Bisset, Aestaewast, Dirty Lemons, Lise Sinclair, Rumshack Blues Band, Jordan Ogg and Loveshack - again to name but a few, and to give you just a flavour of what to expect.

And if traditional dancing is your 'thing', there will be a full-blown 'Shetland Dance' held on Victoria Pier on Saturday night as part of our 'Ceilidh Evening' featuring our award winning dance band the Cullivoe Dance Band.

Although inevitably well represented it's by no means traditional music all the way of course. Rest assured there's much more to Shetland than that. Rock, indie, country, jazz, contemporary vocal and many other genres will also feature heavily during the four day period. For instance heavy rock followers can look forward to a fantastic showcase (promoted in conjunction with 'Vunkfest') at Holmsgarth on Friday afternoon featuring the likes of 'Hidden Agenda', 'Brothel Corpse Trio' and 'Ten Tonne Dozer', while up-and-coming local young rock bands such as 'Automatic Chicken', 'Organised Chaos', 'Mercury Rising' and 'Casino Feet' will also have their own showcase earlier the same afteroon in a partnership 'project' with Shetland Arts Young Promoters Group.

On Friday night at Holmsgarth - on the same bill as the Levellers - you can also see and hear three brilliant young rock bands currently based on the UK mainland, but who heavily feature Shetlanders in their ranks - Stagger Rats, Oscar Charlie and Eat Dr Ape - with both the Stagger Rats and Eat Dr Ape making their long-overdue live debut's in the islands, while recent sensations Oscar Charlie of course make a very welcome return from their current 'exile' in Glasgow.

Sunday evening on the Holmsgarth stage promises not only to be a real cracker of a musical evening, but potentially a very poingnant one too for many local music fans, with a number of great names from the past 'reforming', or making a come-back, especially for the finale of the events musical programme. Names such as Revolver, The Vinyls, the Red Vans (probably playing their VERY LAST gig together) together with the dynamic and evergreen Pete Stack & the Rayburns will no doubt round off what should be a fantastic four days of music with a full-on party atmosphere. Expect some musical surprises along the way into the bargain!!!!

Add to all this the event's 'Club Marquee' - located on Laurenson Quay in Lewick's town centre and running from 9.30pm - 1am Thursday to Saturday - hosted by visiting Glasgow DJ Tam Coyle (resident DJ at T in the Park) with guest spots from local DJ's John Henry, Dacorker, Lyall Williamson and Gordon Comrie.

Davie Gardner of Shetland based company 'Atlantic Edge Music Services', who is acting as programmer and co-ordinator for the event, said "I hope everyone agrees we've managed to pull together a very eclectic and high quality music programme, featuring just some of the cream of Shetland music, together with a range of visiting artists who will appeal to a wide number of people and tastes. I accept you cannot hope to please everyone re an event of this nature, but I hope the music programme will, for many, prove just one highlight of what should be a tremendous and almost certainly unique event ".  

So all-in-all it promises to be a tremendous and hopefully fun-filled event with something for everyone indeed!! Enjoy - and let's hope the sun shines too!!!

For the full music event programme click - HERE

For further information on Shetland why not visit the Promote Shetland website - HERE