Some of the most talented emerging trad musicians in Scotland are set to take on the biggest artist in pop as The Reeling Festival near Glasgow collides with Taylor Swift’s sellout shows in Edinburgh.
The traditional music event will take place at Rouken Glen Park on Saturday, June 8 and Sunday, June 9 – the same weekend Swift’s Eras tour arrives at Scottish Gas Murrayfield.
With some of the biggest names in the Scottish trad music scene taking to The Reeling’s main stage – including Elephant Sessions and Niteworks – organisers are confident trad fans will not be tempted by the allure of Tay Tay.
Closing off the festival will be high-energy powerhouse, Mànran. Kim Carnie, who fronts the multi award-winning Scottish supergroup, said the growth in traditional music fans is largely down to artists offering more to younger listeners.
Ms Carnie, who hails from Oban said: “There’s certainly been a shift in the way people create traditional music recently – it caters more to a younger audience.
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“Genre crossover has been a massive part of that – we’re not afraid to explore outside of the parameters of the expected folk and traditional sounds, which draws more people in.
“Since coming out of lockdown, there's been a lot more focus on a show being an experience. We travel with our own lighting engineer in Mànran and have introduced larger soundscapes to our live shows – the scene is raising the game.
"We want people to leave our shows saying, ‘what an incredible experience’, not just ‘that was a couple of nice tunes’.”
On the growing popularity of her Gaelic music, Ms Carnie said: “Having the privilege to take our language to stages across the world isn’t something I take for granted.
“We have people all over the world getting in touch to say they’ve downloaded Gaelic on Duolingo – we even did a YouTube series translating the songs because so many people wanted to sing along. It means a lot, and it’s so important to us, seeing people connect with a language so close to our hearts.”
Ruairidh Graham is the drummer in Niteworks, an electronic Celtic fusion band from the Isle of Skye. 2024 marks Niteworks final year as a band, and The Reeling one of their final performances.
Mr Graham said: “A big part of the growth has been the bands doing interesting crossover stuff – it’s fusing the music with more mainstream stuff.
“I grew up in Skye, and it used to be that if you had a fiddle on your back you were seen as somewhat geeky – it’s very cool now.
“A big part of the growth has been the bands doing interesting crossover stuff – it’s fusing the music with more mainstream stuff.
“The Reeling, a summer traditional music festival in the central belt, is the most overdue thing ever. I reckon Glasgow has the biggest concentration of trad players as an audience by a long shot, and it would have come sooner if not for Covid.
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“It all adds to the visibility of trad support, and that is recognition that this genre is a serious player in the music industry.”
Laura Wilkie, fiddle and song player from Kinnaris Quintet, said: “While it might seem daunting to be playing the same weekend and Taylor Swift, I think the trad community has grown and I have every confidence in all the artists’ abilities to put on a great show.
“We are in an age where we can access any kind of music we want from all over the world, and people are drawn to something they can identify with or that is ‘local’ by comparison.
“It’s a hugely vast musical landscape and I think traditional music has become a lot more diverse in terms of representation and subgenres of traditional music.
“There’s something for everyone and people playing the music on stages reflects a broader demographic – so more people can relate and identify with ‘trad’ as an overarching term for the music they listen to or go and enjoy live.”
Michael Pellegrotti, a music promoter based in Glasgow, created The Reeling in 2023 after seeing hype growing around traditional music.
He said: “I’ve ran Skye Live, a traditional music festival, since 2015 and we’ve had the privilege of watching a new wave of traditional musicians grow in stature – and that is ultimately what inspired The Reeling.
“In the last 5-10 years, there has been a stream of new generation music fans coming to trad – a lot of eyes have been opened, and a big part of that is the quality of trad musicians around at the moment. Their performances are so energetic and captivating, it's an incredible experience.
“Scotland is such a small country, so you do worry that the audience can get swallowed up when you're up against someone as big as Taylor Swift with a capacity of 220k people. But traditional music has this strong, dedicated following and community around it - so I'm sure the Traddies will be out in force, just like the Swifties.”
The 5,000-capacity event first burst onto the Scottish festival scene in June 2023.
This year's festival will see Rouken Glen Park brought to life with performances spanning two stages, a dedicated kids area and Scottish food and drink offerings from the likes of Birch coffee and Screaming Peacock.
Tickets for The Reeling festival are available here.
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