Skerryvore – Live Across Scotland
Tyree Records – 10 July 2020
A live album from Skerryvore has been a long time coming. This year, they’re celebrating 15 years since the four original members released their debut album, West Coast Life. Six studio albums later, the band has doubled in size, and their West Coast life has turned into a life of almost continual tours, covering the UK and much of Europe, North America and Australia. With touring of any sort currently a distant memory, the notion of a live album is an attractive concept both for a band needing to generate income and for audiences deprived of the concert experience. In reality, though, plans for this album were well advanced long before coronavirus started to wreak its havoc. When I met up with the band on last autumn’s English tour, they could outline a plan and had already started off-the-desk recording of the shows. That experience became a dry run for their next tour, the traditional, end of year, Scottish tour that has now provided all the material for Live Across Scotland.
The timing was perfect, as they write in the sleeve notes, “when we finally decided to record our first live album, our immediate thoughts were on capturing the craziest crowds, and on that basis, Scotland was the unanimous winner!” Material for the album was defined by the tour setlist, but, with thirteen complete shows recorded, tricky decisions still had to be made as to which gig’s version to use. Singer, guitarist and principal songwriter, Alec Dalglish, volunteered to listen and evaluate them all. Well, the rest of the band firmly believe he volunteered.
Tracks from their last studio album, 2018’s Evo, inevitably dominated the tour setlist and the live album reflects that with seven of its fifteen tracks. Fifteen is pretty generous for a CD and means that almost all of the tour set has been included, though some omissions were inevitable. The total playing time is only just within the 80 minute capacity of audio CDs. Alec’s songs make up five of the Evo tracks, including the audience participation favourites, Waiting on the Sun and Live Forever. The sixth is a pairing of two Martin Gillespie compositions, Soraidh Slàn one of the rare quiet interludes in a Skerryvore set, featuring soulful pipes and Alan Scobie’s keyboards, and this segues into The Rise, renewing normal service with frenetic guitar and pipes battling it out. The final track from Evo is a relative rarity in the current Skerryvore repertoire in that it wasn’t composed by a band member. Trip to Modera, a Gordon Duncan composition, is given the full Skerryvore treatment as the opening track of the album.
The remainder of the album plunders the band’s extensive back catalogue, stretching as far back as The Ginger Grouse Jigs, a set of four tunes that first appeared on the 2007 On the Road album. These three trad tunes plus Calliope House from Boys of the Lough’s Dave Richardson have long been a firm favourite in Skerryvore’s live repertoire and, coming early in the set, are guaranteed to get the dancing started. At least one track has been taken from each of the band’s subsequent albums. Path to Home, from 2010’s Skerryvore, is the final track and, at over ten minutes, the longest on the album. The length is due to it hosting that staple of live albums, the opportunity for each band member to take a bow with a short solo. 2012’s World of Chances provides the less frequently heard The Last Time and the ever-popular Put Your Hands Up while Can You Hear Us? and Martin’s raucous pipe classic, The Rut, appeared on 2014’s Chasing the Sun. Completing the fifteen track set is Happy to be Home the original recording of which, on 2015’s Decade album, featured Sharon Shannon’s button accordion. In Sharon’s absence, the current arrangement throws a spotlight on the band’s most recent arrival, Scott Wood. His whistle takes over from the accordions of Sharon and Daniel Gillespie used in the original arrangement, and becomes lead-instrument for the between verses and fade out riffs.
From the end of November 2019 through to Celtic Connections in January 2020, Skerryvore played thirteen gigs at venues across Scotland and all but one of those concerts have provided tracks for the album. Unusually, liner notes in the 12-page booklet are concerned with descriptions of the locations and their audiences, rather than the music. It’s a measure of how proud the band is of the venues that their home country can provide and of the audiences that regularly ensure they play sell-out gigs there. It’s a timely salute when everyone associated with the performing arts is suffering acutely from the current absence of work and a desperately uncertain future. However, one of their favourite venues, The Ironworks in Inverness, was already under severe threat when they played there in December, with the building targeted for redevelopment. In what the band fervently hopes isn’t a parting gift, four of the album’s tracks are taken from their Ironworks gig, with other venues providing just one each.
All the concert recording was handled by Paul Hoolahan, the band’s regular, touring sound engineer and a thoroughly good job he’s made of it, the sound quality is excellent throughout. The mixing, though, is just as important and that was handed over to Ron Cook at Split The Difference Audio in Chicago. Getting the right balance between music and audience reactions is critical to a live album and I find it hard to find fault with what has been achieved on Live Across Scotland. Skerryvore’s audiences are lively and noisy. Capturing that atmosphere was vital if the album was to satisfy anyone who’d experienced it first hand and equally necessary to spur those who knew only studio recordings into attending future gigs. The right balance is constantly changing, so for quiet tracks such as At The End Of The Line, the audience is taken completely out of the mix until the last 5 seconds, no chance of the all important lyrics being obscured. In contrast, the quiet instrumental, Soraidh Slàn, benefits from hearing the audience’s reactions to the interplay between pipes and keyboards but by the time the band has shifted into top gear for The Rise, there’s little chance of the audience making themselves heard until the last notes fade and the cheering takes over.
The market for live albums is predominantly a band’s existing fan base, people who already know the excitement of the live performances and relish the opportunity to experience it where and when they choose. These will be delighted by Live Across Scotland, it’s as near as you could get to capturing Skerryvore’s live sound and the atmosphere that goes with it. And it will surely help that its release coincides with the current absence of live music. It’s a harder sell for people yet to experience a Skerryvore gig but those who take the plunge won’t regret it and, listening to Live Across Scotland, should ensure they’ll be first in line for the band’s next gig in their area.
Live Across Scotland is out on 10 July 2020 and will be available on CD and to download and stream. CD is available to pre-order now at www.skerryvore.com