Piping Live! Day 2: sunshiny playing and only three more sleeps

. . . have had a successful season in the lead up to the World’s and were looking and sounding good.

Time to head up the “hill” and I could almost smell the smoke and burger fumes from the National Piping Centre’s large BBQ as I made my way up Hope Street to check out the second heat of Pipe Idol. The heat consisted of four competitors: Sara Muir representing Inveraray & District, Liam Kernaghan from Canterbury Caledonian, Chris MacDonald of ScottishPower and Blair Hodson from the Pipeband Club. I managed to arrive in time to give fellow Kiwi Liam a bit of a hard time for looking very nervous whilst being interviewed by a camera crew, and settled down with some lunch to watch Blair compete, who is also a Kiwi. A large and appreciative crowd were in attendance and the sun shone down on the distinctive white tent of the Street Café as we were treated to a tasty mixture of MSRs, more up-beat tunes and even some Breton music. Chris MacDonald emerged as the winner and will go on to compete in the final on Friday.

Unfortunately my Piping Live! fun had to end there for the day as I made my way north to band practice but hear from very reliable sources that the Silver Cap and International Quartet competitions were very enjoyable with Angus MacColl and St. Laurence O’Toole taking out the competitions respectively. Wednesday should be another big day with the highly anticipated St. Laurence O’Toole concert likely to be an absolute highlight of the week.

Only three more sleeps until the big day on Saturday . . .

Libby O’Brien grew up in New Zealand and played in Auckland & District before moving to Australia, where she worked with the Western Australia Police and played with the Pipeband Club. She now lives in Glasgow, is a snare drummer with Robert Wiseman Dairies-Vale of Atholl and, she says, “sells kilts to Scotsmen when she’s not drumming.”