Reviews

RUM FESTIVAL *****

KINLOCH CASTLE, RUM

IF YOU hold any truck with meteorological symbolism, then the first Sound of Rum music festival certainly got the blessing of the elements at the weekend. True, the sun was playing hide and seek on Sunday with spells of classic Hebridean smirr, but the previous day it shone steadily from dawn to dusk, beaming down on several hundred happy campers. Looking over the sea to Skye, it really was a fairytale spot for a festival.

Built in 1897 by Sir George Bullough, the playboy heir to a Lancastrian industrial fortune, the castle - aptly enough - is a monument to unashamed pleasure, complete with every mod con that Victorian enterprise bequeathed the Edwardian rich. Judging by the rumours of orgies, said to have been hosted by Bullough in the private ballroom, this wasn’t the first time the place had witnessed some serious partying.

For an island community of 30 (six of them children) to entertain a sell-out audience of 400 - plus artists and crew - over three days is no small undertaking, but royally entertained is what you were.

From the cosy size of the main marquee, the small but perfect catering operation, and the smiling local volunteers manning the bargain-priced bar, to such left-field delights as an axe-throwing workshop (honest), this was a welcome born of careful preparation.

"One of the main ideas behind the festival is to get past Rum’s reputation as the forbidden island," explained the events co-director, Fliss Hough, referring to the visitor restrictions formerly imposed under the Scottish Natural Heritage’s ownership of the island. "Since the new access legislation, we really are open to visitors now, and the festival is one way to get that message across."

With funding from a range of local enterprise and community development bodies, the festival scored first and foremost with a top-notch line-up of bands, headed by the high-octane triple whammy of Shooglenifty, Session A9 and The Peatbog Faeries. Hough also credits the new HI-ARTS online ticketing system, www.thebooth.co.uk, ith a key role in the event’s success, not least in pulling a strikingly young crowd, from both elsewhere in the Highlands and the Central Belt. Each of the three headline acts has their roots and heart in the western Highlands and Islands - as does, let’s face it, much of Scottish traditional music - and all three performed with joyous, riotous abandon amid the heady buzz of their home crowd having an early summer spree.

Even so, the show was nearly stolen from under them by Lochaber-based five-piece Daimh, whose all acoustic, fiddle ‘n’ pipes-led charge reached truly dizzying peaks of fire and fervour.

Other highlights lurking beneath other unfamiliar names included a pulsing, swaggering set from the Treacherous Band, featuring several members of Croft No Five, and a wicked dance frenzy whipped up by the Squashy Bag Ceilidh Band led by fiddlers Eilidh Shaw and Sarah McFadyen.

SUE WILSON

MUSIC

GIRLS ALOUD ***

CLYDE AUDITORIUM, GLASGOW

WHEN the members of Girls Aloud were elected by the public on Popstars: The Rivals, nobody expected them to serve a full pop term. However, thanks to a clutch of ballsy pop songs which are far too good for them, they now find themselves in front of a cheap and nasty set - with costumes to match - and backed by a rock school session band, who probably agreed to do the gig on the condition that they got to play bubblegum versions of their favourite riffs from My Sharona to Santana.

Sarah, the game blonde one, was the only member of these Stepford Spice Girls to display a vestige of personality, although her relentless cheerleading approach verged on the manic in comparison to the robotic detachment of her bandmates. Cheryl and Kimberley are still desperately thin as vocalists, while Nadine, generally acknowledged as the strongest singer, is just desperately thin.

Mostly they managed to rise above a lack of natural talent to hit their mark, interact with the dancers and show off their taut bellies in unison. But the stars of the show were the songs, mimed or otherwise - the saucy Love Machine, a rocking No Good Advice and the dynamic Sound Of The Underground.

FIONA SHEPHERD

TRIBUTE

THE SPACE YOU’RE NOT IN ****

ORAN MOR, GLASGOW

IN MEMORY of the life and work of Gail Wylie, this evening could scarcely fail to entertain with the wealth of talent participating. The unpublished poet and actress, who died of leukaemia in September, was a keen supporter of the arts, and this benefit for leukaemia research welcomed some of Scotland’s foremost artists, musicians and writers.

As master of ceremonies, comedian Sandy Nelson kept the night bounding along nicely, suitably humbled to introduce Alisdair Gray, Janice Galloway and James Kelman for a series of short readings, with Bluebird Theatre Group performing some of Wylie’s own poetry and Arab Strap’s Aidan Moffat surprised to find the Anglo-Saxonisms of his own verse pre-empted by Kelman.

Tom Leonard, likewise, was keeping no lid on his expletitives, receiving a huge cheer from a lubricated crowd who lapped up the merciless characterisations of Liz Lochead and wry tales of sexual misadventure from Zoe Strachan. Playwright John Byrne poignantly related his relationship with Wylie, who became his biographer, and saw his artwork Alive sell for 2,600 in a tremendously fun auction.

To cap a marvellous evening, Eddi Reader sang a cappella, Moffat reappeared for a shambling Arab Strap set, and Belle and Sebastian rattled through some stonking new material.

JAY RICHARDSON