SFU Pipe Band shows sold out
Rob MacNeil, in Scotland: Direct dial 011-44-7790-453515, rob@robertmacneilmusicworks.com
Don MacLachlan, SFU PAMR, 604.763.3929, donmac@sfu.ca
Jack Lee, Pipe Sergeant: Direct dial 011-44-7542-588801 jack.lee@shaw.ca
The "Sold Out" sign in Scotland has become a trademark of the Simon Fraser University Pipe Band, now in Glasgow for the World Pipe Band Championships.
The band sold out its concert Wednesday night (Aug. 12) in the Glasgow Royal Concert Hall.
A sellout of all 2,475 seats there is rare enough—but this time the world-champion SFU band sold out the standing-room-only section, and the restricted-view seats above and behind the stage.
And tickets long ago sold out—in record time—for the Grade 1 Pipe band competition at world event on Glasgow Green on Saturday (Aug. 15). That's when and where the band will seek its sixth world title.
Today (Aug. 13) is another practice day for the band, in Stirling, Scotland. And for its “farm team” band—the Robert Malcolm Memorial Pipe Band, which will compete in the junior Grade 3 class. (This band is named for Robert Barbulak and Malcolm Bokenfohr, two members of the SFU Pipe Band who died in an automobile accident in 1993.)
In all, the “Worlds” draws 200 bands from 16 nations, with 8,000 pipers and drummers, and a good 45,000 spectators.
The BBC will livecast the finals on the web via http://www.bbc.co.uk/scotland/music/worlds/2009/.
The Grade 1 event begins at 4:30 a.m. PST on Saturday. (No word yet on exactly when the SFU band will be playing.)
The SFU band, led by Pipe Major Terry Lee of Coquitlam, nailed its fifth title at the 2008 championships in Glasgow by winning the Medley event and the World Drum Corps Championship, and placing second in the March, Strathspey and Reel event.
For 14 years, SFU has battled for the title with the Field Marshal Montgomery Band from Northern Ireland and with Scotland’s House of Edgar Shotts & Dykehead band.
SFU won the title in 1995, 1996, 1999, 2001 and 2008. Last year, the Montgomery band placed second and Shotts & Dykehead third. In all, the Montgomery Band has won six crowns, and the Shotts & Dykehead band 15 titles.
[Editors: Band members from B.C. are from Abbotsford, Burnaby, Coquitlam, Langley, New Westminster, North Vancouver, Penticton, Port Coquitlam, Surrey, Vancouver and Vernon. If you’d like names and contact info for them, please e-mail donmac@sfu.ca. Still photos of the band in action are available on request, but we generally lack identifying info for the individuals in them.]