A fiddle
group in Provence
(or what we did on our holidays)
The
French trip stemmed from a standard Friday night in the Allanbank when
a
gentleman of impeccable taste heard us play and decided that he’d like
some
live music at his birthday party. We almost didn’t do this gig because
we
already had a ceilidh booked for the same evening, and, if truth be
told, it
was incompetence – we doubled booked ourselves. But since we have more
fiddlers
than you can shake a stick at, we were able to cover both events. The
said
gentleman was so pleased with the result that he mentioned us in
glowing terms
to his cousin who was planning a Scottish wedding in Provence for which
she
needed a ceilidh band. A provisional booking followed, with a visit by
the
soon-to-be-happy couple to a ceilidh we did in Auchterarder to make
sure that
the future bride’s cousin wasn’t a tone deaf moron. The plans were
firmed up.
The wedding was to take place on Saturday 15 April at
Le Chateau de Sénéguire, Val de Sibourg, which is about
20 miles north of
Marseilles.
We
were originally contracted to play at the wedding ceilidh but we were
also
asked to play at a buffet the following day and then at a birthday a
couple of
days before. The owner of the gite (situated in Orgon,
Bouches-du-Rhône, Provnce)
where we were staying decided to have an open night with us as the main
attraction so we ended up with four gigs in the week we spent there. Of these, the wedding ceilidh was the most
amazing. In a chateau, with a very
significant sound system (read large) and a mixture of Scots, Norwegian
and
French dancers who had been celebrating for 5 hours by the time the
dancing
started. It turned out that these are
precisely the ingredients for a wild and perfect evening.
After two hours of continuous dancing, we
ended with an Orcadian Strip the Willow which went on for about 20
minutes and,
as an encore (in response to our public), we did the High Road to
Linton set at
about 160 km per hour (considerably over the spend limit even on an
autoroute).
We had found the One (see below).
The
birthday and the buffet were in a vineyard which was something up with
which we
just had to put. The former involved
eating a barbecued whole pig (not each).
It was tough but someone had to do it.
The open night was in stable in the ramparts of the walls of
Orgon. The
floor was roughly hewn stone, and sloped up unevenly about 20 degrees.
The roof
was arched with stone. The acoustics were wonderful.
There was wine and food.
A friend of the gite owner recorded us on a high quality
mini-disc
player and presented us with a CD a couple of days later and the
landlady
herself was so pleased that she has offered us free accommodation
should we
return.
What
do we learn from these experiences?
Many things. Clearly the sun
shines on the righteous and our French chums have excellent taste in
music. It is worth going to the pub
every week because you never know what will turn up.
And perhaps there is a formula from which you can work out when
you are going to have a superb session/ceilidh/gig.
Out of 100 gigs, one or two will go wrong, 57 will be OK (quite
enjoyable), 35 will be really nice, a few will be memorable and one
will be a
mega-gig. It’s worth doing it for the
“one” – the Neo of gigs.
Musicians
on the French trip:- Aly,
Andrew (B), Calum, Freya, Jan, Julie, Peter
In
support:- Glen, Kate,
Lesley