The 19th Belhaven Best Dunbar Traditional Music Festival, September 28th-30th 2007, continues in the vein of 2006’s growth, with the same number of venues and gigs.

Most Belhaven outlets in the town will participate and as usual, all strolling musicians will be welcome to play a tune at any of the venues in the evening or afternoon sessions.

Friday kicks off with the Scottish Evening in the Hillside Hotel, hosted by Stuart Adamson, Joanna Cockburn and Robin Hamilton.  As this is a very popular venue, get there early to ensure a seat for the evening!

Appalachian music from the mountains of North America went down so well last year; we have invited back the Feet First Band from Derbyshire.  They are superb multi-instrumentalists, not be missed either on Friday or Saturday.

Sandy Brechin and Ewan Wilkinson return by popular demand on Friday evening.  Sandy is an accordian virtuoso and teacher.  Ewan is an outstanding guitarist whose songs are well constructed and very original.

Rallion have gigs on both nights at the Barns Ness and Hallhill.  Their lively and enthusiastic performances draw large audiences. The double fiddle sound provokes creative vocal arrangements and energetic instrumentals.

After their 06 Saturday debut, Lyra Celtica feature on both evenings.  Multi-instrumentalists Lyn Tocker, Frankie McGuire and Chuck Fleming are a class act and role models for young aspiring musicians.  They were so impressive last year, they sold out of CDs!

Having missed out in 06, Blues Inc return to the Eagle Inn with their unique style of blues presentation, which really gets the punters jumpin! Andrew Gordon (The Mighty Fine One) completes Friday’s line up, at the Mason’s Arms.

On Saturday, the programme starts almost simultaneously at four separate venues.  The extremely popular Children’s Workshop, hosted by cellist Lana McEwan and pianist Joanna Cockburn starts first, followed by the Hillside Accordian afternoon at 2.00pm.  At the same time the Diplomats of Jazz strike up in the Belhaven curtainsider and the Acoustic Folk Ceilidh hosted by the perennial Guy Heath strums up in The Barns Ness Hotel.  To give the jazz quartet a break, The Dunbar British Legion Pipe Band will tune up the bagpipes between 3.00pm-3.20pm.  As an unbiased southerner, I thought their performance was outstanding in 2006!!!
At 3.15pm, the Eyemouth based All Star Podlies team up with accordianist John Leslie and Dunbar School pupils to give an afternoon concert in the parish church hall.  The Podlies are a seriously interactive singing group and have a fair bit of ‘craic’ with the audience. John Leslie is a teaching ‘legend’ and many of today’s top players owe their beginnings to John.

The sensational Jimmy Shandrix Experience hosts the West Barns Bowling Club ceilidh dance.  This globe trotting outfit, popular with Caledonian Societies worldwide are led by accordion ace Sandy Brechin who calls and leads the dances.

The Rossborough Hotel will be hosting the A Watt and Son Ceilidh Dance, featuring the Neil Hardie on Saturday evening.  The entrance charge is £5."

The Paul McKenna Band has a gig at the Hillside and The Rocks. Paul who co-writes original songs with band member David McNee has been greatly influenced by Dick Gaughan, Christy Moore, The Waterboys and Donal Lunny amongst others.  Their original songs reflect the rich traditions of Scottish and Irish music and we look forward to hearing them live for the first time.

Guy Heath, teaming up with Lou and Cruithne are at the Mason’s Arms and The Eagle Inn respectively.  Both have faithful followings for their totally different styles of music.

Sunday’s Folk Ceilidh and Celtic Shindig are hosted by Guy Heath and Andrew Knight and Slainti M’hath, the robust traditional duo who started in 2005.

The very highly rated Ceilidh Minogue make their first appearance at the festival hosting a new format for Sunday afternoon.  A combined concert and ceilidh, which will be a free event.  Gregor Lowry, Al Morrow, Gavin Marwick and Bob Turner are some of Scotland’s most experienced and talented musicians having played with Cat Stevens and a wide range of top folk, rock and traditional music bands.  They will be on stage at the Rossborough Hotel from 2.00pm-4.30pm.

 

 

 

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