Rivalry aside for concert on road to worlds
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The Simon Fraser University Pipe Band is in Stirling, Scotland to prepare for the world championships, after first stopping off in Belfast for a rare concert together with the longtime rivals Field Marshal Montgomery Pipe Band.
The sold-out, three-hour performance was the first time the two bands—each claiming six world championship titles—have played together on stage.
“It’s a rivalry but we’re also friends,” says SFU Pipe Major Terry Lee. “We just happen to be the top two bands in the world and that makes for a big attraction.”
The show featured the Canadian and Northern Ireland bands playing separate sets as well as a few pieces together, following months of preparation by the bands’ pipe majors. Band members also had a chance to “hang out” during lunch, dinner and after the show.
“It was a stunning concert,” reports Patti Nichols, whose son Will played a brief pipe solo. Nichols also sold nearly $3,000 worth of band merchandise at the performance. “People were glued to their seats, they just loved it.”
The performance was the finale of a week-long celebration in Belfast held in conjunction with the European pipe band championships. It was organized by the Royal Scottish Pipe Band Associations’s Northern Ireland branch.
Lee says the performance is part of a three-year plan by the Irish organizers to raise awareness of the Field Marshal Montgomery band’s success and an interest in potentially moving the championships to Belfast.
The Aug. 6 show was the first chance for the SFU band to show off their new kilts, picked up in Glasgow the day before.
Housed at John Forty’s Court in Stirling, an off-site housing unit for Stirling University, band members will now turn their attention to practising full tilt over the next week with daily sessions in the facility’s courtyard.
There’s also an afternoon concert in George Square in Glasgow Wednesday, followed by a practice at Glasgow Green, site of the world championships. And on Tuesday, the drummers will attend a demonstration event in Glasgow.
“It’s busy, but from here on there’s nothing else on our minds but playing well,” says Lee.
The world championship competition takes place Saturday (Aug. 14.) You can watch it all on a livestream from BBC Scotland, by way of bbc.co.uk/worlds. Glasgow time is eight hours later than Vancouver time.