Scots VIP piper Craig Weir is waving Bye Bye Baby to his dream year by playing four nights with the Bay City Rollers at the Barrowlands, starting last night.
He began the year guesting with Queen at the SSE Hydro in January, and Craig, 22, from Carnoustie, said he landed his dream sign-off to 2015 by pure chance.
On meeting Rollers front man Les McKeown at the Tartan Clef Awards last month, he said: “We discussed using the pipes in their show during the evening and we exchanged several messages afterwards.
“It was pure luck I met him, but it was great as he was very enthusiastic about the work my band Gleadhraich are doing in trying to put the bagpipes firmly on the musical map with young Scots.”
At the start of 2015, Craig was selected by Brian May of rock gods Queen to start their encore rendition of We Will Rock You on the bagpipes as a surprise for the audience on the Scottish leg of their world tour at the SSE Hydro on January 14.
He was chosen after Brian came up with the idea of have a piper start the song at the Glasgow gig and heard how Craig and his band Gleadhraich promote the bagpipes to young people by using them on arrangements of classic rock songs as well as their own rock-based tunes.
Craig won a Young Scot award last year for his work and Gleadhraich were Cultural Ambassadors for their home county of Angus in 2014 because of their role in promoting the pipes.
Craig is no stranger to playing for VIPs, as he composed a tune for and played it to the Dalai Lama when he visited Dundee in June 2012. He also played Happy Birthday to Gandhi’s grandson Arun over Skype last year and has played for The Queen, Alex Salmond and the VIPs at the 2013 MOBOs in Glasgow.
In April he played for and met Billy Connolly and Alan Cumming while taking part in NYC Tartan Week as a World Peace Tartan Ambassador. He also paid tribute to a piping hero while enjoying a privileged opportunity to play at the 9/11 Memorial before leading a local school in the Tartan Day Parade.
Speaking about his first Rollers guest spot on Loch Lomond on Sunday night, Craig said: “The Bay City Rollers are one of Scotland’s greatest bands and its legendary first boy band. It was a privilege and an honour to be on stage with Les, Woody and Alan as Rollermania kicked back into gear.
“The atmosphere inside the Barrowland was incredible and the Rollers were everything I imagined and hoped they’d be. They put on an amazing show to start off the Shang-A- Lang Xmas tour.”
Craig is already an internationally-recognised piper in his own right with performances in the USA, Switzerland, France, Belgium, China and Germany to date. At the age of eight his uncle Jack handed him a set of pipes and urged him to have a go. Since then he’s never looked back.
His reputation has grown so much that last year he was asked to play the pipes at Lorraine Kelly’s Scottish BAFTAs special award presentation, Andy Murray’s honorary graduation at Stirling University - at the request of Judy Murray - and join Babyshambles and The Libertines on stage.
Away from the stage, Craig is studying for a Postgraduate Diploma in Education at Aberdeen University. He already has a degree in Community Learning and Development from Dundee University.
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