And lo, a mythical bearded figure going by the name of The Pictish Trail repopulated a small Scottish island in the name of pop music and having a ball.
Two years since the Fence Collective first briefly quadrupled Eigg's 78-strong populace with a party-seeking taskforce of bands and music lovers, the second Away Game proved to be as dream-like and welcoming as its predecessor, from the skirling pier-side salutation of local legend Donna The Piper, to the farmyard animals making way for us, and our tents, on their land.
Edinburgh alt-rock ensemble Meursault opened proceedings in The Ceilidh Hall – a cosy hut in the woods, bedecked in children's decorations. Their terrific set played heavily on ace new album, Something for the Weakened, including a perfect first track in Flittin', which captured our spirit of adventure. "We moved away, we slept under the stars," Neil Pennycook sang, we all sang, full of the joys of a sunny afternoon, and blissfully unaware of the gales that would test the endurance of tents (and hitherto camping enthusiasts) by Sunday.
The rest of the evening was similarly thrilling. Glasgow electro-brass pop marvels Over The Wall raised the roof (well, canvas) on woodland venue The Marquee – a tent propped up by trees – with their brilliant, life-affirming songs of youth, and work, and love, and Thurso.
Sheffield indie duo Slow Club augmented their ranks with Welsh troubadour Sweet Baboo (who would later stage a typically deadpan solo show), for a set that celebrated last year's album, Paradise (particularly the still-exquisite Two Cousins) and revealed a gorgeous, bluesy new number which aligned singer/drummer Rebecca Taylor with Maria McKee. London's Radials have a similarly striking front-of-stage vocalist/drummer in Sarah Tanat-Jones (ere of Edinburgh power-pop outfit Come on Gang), and their Technicolor, sequinned punk-pop was fantastic.
Congenial host The Pictish Trail, aka Fence Records chieftan Johnny Lynch, performed a crowning set backed by various members of Edinburgh slow-core dreamboats eagleowl – his forthcoming album, Secret Soundz Vol 2 promises to be a thing of dreamy, alt-pop wonder – while Fence's indie-rock champions, Kid Canaveral, unleashed such a barrage of party favourites that there was an on-stage stampede.
Another Fence signee, acoustic heartbreaker Seamus Fogarty, made for a glorious, laid-back Saturday afternoon, and Glasgow chamber-pop troupe Randolph's Leap triumphed with their outstanding, erudite anthems. Frontman Adam Ross is a rare song-writing talent, and his voice is beautiful. A new aria, Isle of Love, "about a fictional romantic island where only good things happen", was a perfectly-pitched soundtrack to the weekend.
Fence recruited an impressive Welsh pop contingent, including the aforementioned Sweet Baboo, psychedelic pop diviners Euros Childs and Gruff Rhys, and Rhys's Super Furry Animals band-mate Guto Pryce, whose psych-folk outfit, Gulp, was heady with torch-lit electro-chanson. Vocalist Lindsey Leven has connections to Scotland's great Maclean cult-pop dynasty, and that clan was out in force with the Beta Band's John Maclean on the decks and his younger brother David helming one of the festival's stand-out bands, ergo cosmic-electro, coconut-rattling, exotic-rock colossi Django Django.
And so the pop delirium continued: Francois and the Atlas Mountains' tropical indie; Rob St John's beatific doom-pop; King Creosote's revitalised pop powerhouse; and clamorous thrash-metal natives The Massacre Cave.
There were also some lovely surprises. On Friday teatime, by the food tent, King Creosote staged an ad-hoc busking gig. He was joined by Fence psychobilly-folk maharishi Gummi Bako and The Pictish Trail – a man who loves Eigg so much that he moved there. During the busking session, King Creosote played requests, including Diamantina Drover. "Fences roll forever," he sang. They conquer hearts, and islands, too.
HHHH
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article