Day One of the Worlds - Day 11

The start of the two day event begins today with Grade #1 action in Arena 1 with all bands playing an MSR and then later a Medley. Here is the draw......

Day one - MSR

Draw Time Band 

1 09:30 Manawatu Scottish 

2 09:38 Shotts and Dykehead Caledonia

3 09:46 Scottish Power 

4 09:54 Police Scotland Fife

5 10:02 Closkelt 

6 10:10 Johnstone 

7 10:18 Inveraray and District 

8 10:26 St Thomas Alumni 

9 10:34 78th Fraser Highlanders 

10 10:42 St Laurence O'Toole 

11 10:50 Peoples Ford Boghall and Bathgate Caledonia 

12 10:58 Simon Fraser University 

13 11:06 Field Marshal Montgomery 

14 11:14 Ravara 

Day one - Medley

Draw Time Band

1 11:50 Manawatu Scottish 

2 12:00 Shotts and Dykehead Caledonia 

3 12:10 Scottish Power 

4 12:20 Police Scotland Fife 

5 12:30 Closkelt

6 12:40 Johnstone 

7 12:50 Inveraray and District 

8 13:00 St Thomas Alumni 

9 13:10 78th Fraser Highlanders 

10 13:20 St Laurence O'Toole 

11 13:30 Peoples Ford Boghall and Bathgate Caledonia 

12 13:40 Simon Fraser University 

13 13:50 Field Marshal Montgomery 

14 14:00 Ravara

Action also begins for both the Juvenile A and B Bands at 3:05 this afternoon. 

We had a coffee and prepared my backpack for the day. Rain gear, water bottle etc. and away we went. Forecast is for sunny weather with a chance of rain. A quick walk along the Clyde and we soon found the main entrance. We have always been on a bus in previous worlds so this was a new process to us 😂. 

We walked over to Arena 1 and grabbed a good corner spot a few rows up. There were many familiar faces close by with the Hilder's, Parkes and other judges doing a mock adjudication. We were clearly in a good listening spot. 

 

Judge training underway.

 Great story here….. St Thomas Alumni has a blind piper who is lead in by an escort. Once they march in and form up the circle, the escort leaves and they continue to play their set. For the breaks into the next tune, the piper beside him taps his foot on the pipers foot to the beat. Very inspiring!

St Thomas Alumni 

Field Marshal Montgomery

Simon Fraser University at the line.

 

The bands all played and I gave it to FM with SFU second and I & D third … but I’m not a trained judge 😂

Kelly had slipped out and picked up some shirts from I & D that had been ordered along with some Worlds shirts. She ran into Jill and Drew Mackay and had a quick catch up. We will hopefully meet up later. 

We sat right behind Peter Aumonier and during the break, asked about the judging group sitting beside us. It is part of continuing education program for new judges. Gives them a chance get feedback etc. on their efforts to be accurate with comments and maintaining impartiality. 

 

I went over and had a great conversation with the camera boom operator who explained how the camera functioned and what shots they got from it. It is really an indoor camera but it has been adapter for this venue. Very interesting.

The Medley competition started right on time and we watched as each of the bands came up to the line and then marched into the circle playing their competition tunes.

My “personal” placing so far… I & D, FM, SFU, Boghall, Revara, Shotts, St Thomas Alumni, SLOT, Closkelt 

We will have to await the results tomorrow to see how close I was in these MSR & Medley predictions:-) 

After the medley competition, we went over to the Babbity Bowster Pub for a late lunch and a pint with Jill and Drew. We got caught up on their recent hike of the West Highland Way along with piping activities, family etc. Great to see them. 

 

Killing the thirst at the Babbity Bowster

Cody arrived and joined us for a cool beverage. North Stratton had a band practice at 2:00 pm and he was exhausted from hiking to a grass covered park by the old Todd Bar. He is taking it easy today so only one pint for him and he was off to his flat at Collegelands. 

 

We headed home as the Mackay's caught a train back to Sterling. 

 

For those interested... you can see the complete day one at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GuaycOtQ1jQ 

 

 

 

 It was a great start to the competition and we are looking forward to even more action on the green tomorrow with 207 bands competing in numerous grades and age groups. The Grade 1 bands play a different MSR and Medley in front of a different set of judges. We bought seating in the grandstand so expecting a great experience. 

 

North Stratton plays an MSR at 10:39 and then a Medley at 3:09 in Arena 2. We will be there to support them.  

 

Steps - 6,500 - yep sitting in a chair watching pipe bands :-) 

 

Mixed cloud with 23ºc temps- no rain and it felt a lot hotter when the sun was out!   

Cool Glasgow- Day 10

Looks like the heat wave has ended as we awoke to a more normal climate in Glasgow.... 19ºc with a high of 23 forecast. We will take it!

We walked over to the huge mall next door, the Enoch Center…. Big mistake! Toy stores galore!  I grabbed a croissant while the shopping went on. 😃

So many parcels that Kelly had to return to the flat to drop them off.  We then headed off to Glasgow Green to watch North Stratton's practice but as we were early we stopped for a beverage at the Old Ship Pub right across from the park.  It was very nice as we sat outside and enjoyed the goings on. Lots of band members walking on by. Prices were very reasonable too!

 

We easily found the drum section as they set up for a YouTube video shoot by Rhythm Monster. It should be published in a day or so.  Video will eventually be here

The pipers all showed up early for their 2 pm start and the band proceeded to warm up. Kelly wandered down the path and found St .Lawrence O’Toole PB (SLOT) and watched that for a while. 

 

 Drummer Kyle, the band’s resident scotch expert, bought us a nice 200ml sampler of Kilchoman single malt. Incredibly kind of him. 

 

Nice!!!!

 

After band practice we wandered back towards the flat. A stop at the Old Ship Pub for a refreshment with Cody and some other band members. 

We prepped for our dinner tonight with Mary, her sister Isobel and husband John.  We are going to House of Gods for a drink then to The Citizen for dinner. 

Drinks and dinner were very good and we really enjoyed meeting Isobel and John. Lots of laughs as we all got caught up on grand kids, travels and activities. 

It's show time for the World Championships as it gets underway tomorrow morning.... we will be there!

 

Steps: 11,200

 

Weather was sunny with 23ºc temps... very nice indeed! 

 

More Music - Day 9

 An alarm went off!! Early start to the day as we have a piping event with Richard Parkes MBE this morning. He is the former Pipe Major of the grade 1 band Field Marshall Montgomery. He will explain how to create a good band intonation across a pipe corp. It will be interesting to hear the deep secrets of Field Marshall :-)

We hoofed it up Buchanan Street to the Piping Live Venue and quickly entered the festival. It was early so not much going on yet. One thing for sure....  it was certainly going to be a warm day with highs of 28ºc!    

Before entering the hall, we had a great conversation with Big Rab and thanked him for keeping the piping community together through COVID. We listened to endless podcasts during that period and always enjoyed the conversations. He is playing the pipes for the first time with Tullylagan PB in Grade 4B. Best of luck to him and his band.

It begins...

We sat down inside the Piping Center 's main hall and really enjoyed Richard Parkes  explanation of reed handling, set up and band routine both before a season and contests. Lots of nuggets in his methodology. Kelly took several notes and will return these to her band at home.  

A few nuggets in here....

Several members of the Warwick Pipe band sat near us…. This is where we spent time for the 2023 FAI F3A World Championships.  Had a good chat with them as they are just doing performances and taking in the Tattoo in Edinburgh.  Maybe compete here someday!!

Been there!!!

We also met some of the MacCrimmon clan in Callum’s wife, Laura Beth who works at the piping center. We hope to see Ian and Charlotte at some point over the weekend. (FYI Ian was the musical director for Edmonton's Big Rock PB when we both played with them in the early 90's when I was based there with AirBC.)

We purchased a couple hamburgers for lunch. Ouch!! 12£ each... and no fries! Do the math! We met an older fellow from Australia as we ate. He had immigrated 60 years ago from Scotland and he knew several people we knew. He also competed years ago at the worlds. Very interesting chap. 

We walked over to the Cowcaddens subway station and headed to Kelvinbridge Station. A short walk through the car park area and on to Kelvingrove Park to watch Field Marshall's practice. 

It’s 28ºc so it won’t be a long practice. 

 

Tune up time in the shade.

Post practice gathering... sounded good.

 

 Peel Police from Canada was there practicing along with several other bands. Interesting to see how FM warmed up… exactly like Richard had mentioned at this talk earlier!

 

Here is an "attack"..... which is simply the starting sequence of the set of music, be it a MSR or Medley.... PM starts the beat and then the drummers execute 2 -Three Beat rolls, the pipers strike their drones on the left foot and on the next left foot sound an  "E" on the chanter. The perfect attack features a solid drone sound and the "E" notes all sounding like one single piper. 

We started to watch the practice but park security showed up and had a chat with the pipe major…..   they didn’t move 😂

We watched for an hour or so and then planned to go over to Victoria Park to watch Inveraray and District practice. We needed to get an uber over to the park as it’s a bit further west than the subway runs. Time ran out so we will just meet up with them at the Worlds site on Friday. 

 

We stopped at the university of Glasgow and grabbed a geocache. The building is spectacular so we had a good look around. 

 

We went back to the subway station and grabbed the train to Enoch station and "home".  We relaxed for a bit then dressed and went back up the street to the Ask Italian restaurant for dinner. It is located right across the street from the concert hall.

 

Pre-concert crowd.

 The evening finished off with a huge concert hosted by Shotts & Dykehead Caledonia. They put on a great show with lots of piping & drumming, singing, and both Highland and Irish dancing. The centerpiece was a tribute to former Pipe Major Robert Mathieson who wrote many famous tunes.... and in a surprise move, he showed up to play with them!  Crowd loved it! 

 

Concert

The show ended and we went back to our flat. A bit of blogging and off to bed after a dram or two of Coal Ila Scotch. My new favorite :-) 

 

Steps: 11,650 

 

Sunny with 28ºc temps.... crazy for Scotland.. it's a heat wave! 

Glasgow - Day 8

Up and at it with some shopping and more piping events planned.

After coffee and a light breakfast, we headed off to North Stratton’s Band practice at Glasgow Green at 11:00 am. It’s a hot one today with highs reaching 25ºC so shorts are in order!! 

We walked down to the Clyde and strolled the walkway to Glasgow Green. An easy 13 minute walk. On the way we chatted with members of a drum major group called The Force that will perform today at the Piping live stage. Nice folks!

We also chatted with a police officer in the dog squad.  They were out doing some investigating and had a Britney Spaniel sniffing around the area. Very nice chap. 

Some lovely architecture along the way… 

Metropolitan Cathedral of St Andrew

 

We arrived at the park a bit early but after a few minutes both the SFU and North Stratton bands started showing up.  They all moved to different areas of the park and started to warm up. We just followed the yellow drums :-) With the warmer dryer weather, lots of bands will play over the grass today to get a feel for the competition day. Moisture control is key here. 

Practice is broken into two groups with the drum section playing together, going through their various sets. Meanwhile the pipe section starts to warm up their pipes with individual playing. The tuners (guys with iPhone apps with frequency scales) go around and tune the drones for each player. The exact frequency is targeted so in the end it sounds like one single sound.  They go around checking constantly.

 

Drum section warming up in the shade.

Pipe section warming up.

The band has three of these tuners going around checking while they play.

There are also several key pipers that will take players aside or play beside them to ensure the chanters are matched well through the note range. Small adjustments are made by moving tape around the note holes to obtain a uniform sound. Once the Pipe Major is happy with the overall sound he will run through numerous sets with the drum core. 

Full band.

And that is a practice session… taking about an hour and a half.   They will return at 15:30 for another one.  

We headed to Marks & Spencers and grabbed some food items for lunch today and breakfast tomorrow. Some wine and crisps rounded out the purchase.  

Back at our hotel room we unpacked the goods and had a light lunch. Kelly headed off to the shops and I went up to find a particular bottle of scotch. I stopped at the Good Spirits Company and left with a nice single malt Caol Ila for us. 

My next stop was the Piping Live Festival at the Piping Center. It was busy with a piping demonstration underway leading into heat 2 of "Piping Idol" where younger pipers battle it out for top spot. Excellent playing by all.

Kelly found her way up to the festival and joined me after doing some shopping. We watched the Drum Major group called The Force, details here and enjoyed the young kids tossing their maces around. Very well done. 

A cool drink and then we enjoyed the Beinn Lee Band hammering out a bunch of great tunes. They played for a full hour and it was very good.... really got the crowd into it. 

Headed back towards home and stopped for food along the way. Maki & Ramen caught Kelly’s eye so in we went. Fast service and it was very good. Funny thing... after we ate, we spotted lots of other great spots to eat... funny how that works.

 

Back at the flat, we finished up the blog and did some planning for tomorrow... it should be a busy day!  Talk session at Piping Live, lunch, Kelvingrove for an FM practice, dinner and then the Shotts concert in the evening.  

Steps: 10,033 

Weather was a hot 27ºC with light winds and no rain.