pigtown fling » tour

Reaper, Oban (old fishing boat)

Stephen — Thu, 07 May 2009 20:21:11 +0000

Pigtown Fling will be playing on Reaper, a Fifie sailing herring drifter dating from 1902, on Thursday 14th May, 2009 in Oban, Argyll, Scotland. The boat is undertaking a tour of the West Highlands to allow schools and the public to visit it an learn about it’s history and the history of th eherring fleet in Scotland.
You can find more about the vessel here – http://www.scotfishmuseum.org/reaper/index.html

Combourg, Brittany, France

Stephen — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 07:29:58 +0000

Pigtown Fling will be playing in Combourg, Brittany, France on Saturday 8th August 2009.
More details to follow.

La Fresnais, Brittany, France

Stephen — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 07:24:50 +0000

Pigtown Fling will be playing in La Fresnais, Brittany, France on Sunday 2nd August 2009.
We will be playing some of our usual repertoire, but a large part of the gig will involve teaching Scottish ceilidh dances and hopefully playing for a few Breton dances too. We will be taking our dear friend Christophe Lefebvre with us on second fiddle and translating duties.

La Fontenelle, Brittany, France

Stephen — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 07:17:48 +0000

Pigtown Fling will be playing in La Fontenelle, Brittany, France on Saturday 1st August 2009. We have been invited to play at the Friends of Jean Langlais Festival for a second year running.
We will be playing some of our usual repertoire, but a large part of the gig will involve teaching Scottish ceilidh dances and hopefully playing for a few Breton dances too. We will be taking our dear friend Christophe Lefebvre with us on second fiddle and translating duties.

Ptuj 09 – day 8 – depature

Stephen — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 07:13:51 +0000

Time passes quickly, and before you can say Nikoli Ni Ves it was time to leave. One more job to go though. The local tourist board is keen to expand the links between Slovenia and Scotland and wanted to do a photo and video shoot at the castle. It was bitterly cold, the fiddle couldn’t cope with the temperature so Sara had to mime the whole thing.
Promo shoot over it was time to have lunch with friends then pack up and leave, just stopping at another hotel to say goodbye to Maja and Doris.
1500 miles ahead, a much more difficult drive after 6 days of hard partying and little sleep.
We must say a huge thanks to everyone in Ptuj and Hotel Mitra who made our visit so special.
2010 anyone?

Ptuj 09 – day 7 – shopping centre?

Stephen — Sun, 01 Mar 2009 08:10:53 +0000

Today we started with one of the more bizarre of our gigs. In the heavy snow we made our way to the local shopping mall, Qlandia, where we wandered about in our Scottish Kurent costumes playing pipes and drums and generally harassing the local shoppers and shop keepers. This seems to go down really well and it’s not the first time we have played here, but can you imagine the same thing in Braehead??

On Tuesday, the final day of carnival, the good citizens of Ptuj all finish work at 12, don their costumes if they haven’t already and hit the town. All the pubs and hotels are full and there is a real party atmosphere in the town. We played around the hotel in the afternoon but spent a large part of the time struggling with our instruments. Moving between the hotel, the snow outside, the shopping centre, the wine cellar and the hotel had really taken its toll on the wood of the stringed instruments and the reeds of the pipes and we were struggling to keep them sounding good. We kept going like the true professionals we are and did our best…

ptuj 09 – day 2 – the tent

Stephen — Sat, 21 Feb 2009 14:45:04 +0000

After our long drive to Slovenia, despite pretty extreme tiredness, we made straight for the carnival tent. This is the main venue for the carnival and must hold a couple of thousand people. Serbian Turbo folk superstar Mile Kitic was the main act. We had seen him last time we were here and a less likely superstar you will never meet. He’s a wee guy in his 50s and he plays on stage with just a keyboard player and a couple of dancers. The slovenians seem to know all the words to all the songs sung by the performers, no matter which language they are singing in.
After the gig our friends Petra and Mateja arranged for us to go back stage and meet the man himself. Turns out his gig fuel of choice is Chivas Regal, and he proceeded to show us the empty litre bottle!

We met some folk who wear the kurent costumes and they invited us to their storage area. There were around 20 costumes and about 10 of us in a tiny room. They insisted we drink pelinkavic, the local herbal spirit, which we gladly did, probably too much and Rob was dressed in one of their costumes, a great privilege!

We did get back to the hotel as the sun was rising!

Ptuj 09 – day 2 – europe

Stephen — Fri, 20 Feb 2009 17:34:23 +0000

Haven’t had any time to write yet so just a quick update. Drove about 900 miles yesterday through France, Belgium, Netherlands, Germany and Austria. We made it earlier than expected, had a great time in the tent then met some kurents who took us to there base where we played tunes, danced and drank slivovic.
I’ll try to write more when I get a chance.

Ptuj 09 – day 1 – Dover

Stephen — Wed, 18 Feb 2009 20:06:49 +0000

We’ve had an excellent journey so far. We only experienced one short traffic jam at the dartford crossing. We have made such good time that we have booked ourselves onto a ferry 3 and a half hours early so should arrive in France around midnight local time.
If the driving is as good through the rest if Europe we may even catch all of the Mile Kitic gig. Go check him out on YouTube. He is one of serbia’s big turbo folk stars.
Time to board the ferry.
Bye

Ptuj 09 – day 1 – England

Stephen — Wed, 18 Feb 2009 10:32:18 +0000

First stage of the trip over. We have just entered England.
Now there are many things about England I like, most notably its cheese, its beer and its traditional music and dance (when you can find it). Driving through it, however, is something I don’t like. We are guaranteed a traffic jam at some point. Last time we drove to Slovenia the only traffic jams were in England, despite being less than a third of the journey. Let’s hope we find a smooth path through this ‘green and pleasant land’.