Soggy Scotland for SFU Pipe Band
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 world champion SFU Pipe Band is anxiously watching the weather and the forecasts in soggy Scotland, as it prepares for the World Pipe Band Championships on Saturday. (Aug. 15)
Pipe Sergeant Jack Lee of Surrey, a veteran of piping and of the championships, says rain can make a bad band sound better—and make a good band lose its edge.
Today’s outdoor practice was rained out, forcing the band into a tiny room to play.
And the forecast for Glasgow for Saturday is for rain for most of the day, with hopes that it could clear a little in the afternoon.
Tickets long ago sold out—in record time—for the Grade 1 Pipe band competition on Glasgow Green. That's when and where the band will seek its sixth world title.
BBC Scotland will livecast the championships 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. Look for the SFU band to play its first set at about 6 a.m. PST and its second about 8 a.m. (These times are only estimates.)
The “farm team” band—the Robert Malcolm Memorial Pipe Band—will compete in the junior Grade 3 class, playing at about 2:30 a.m. PST on Saturday. (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.)
Wet or dry, the “Worlds” draws 200 bands from 16 nations, with 8,000 pipers and drummers, and a good 45,000 spectators.
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.
The SFU band, led by Pipe Major Terry Lee of Coquitlam, Jack Lee’s brother, 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.]