Category: Reviews

A Look Back at Early 2018 Outdoor Pipe Band Competitions

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By Alistair Aitken OBE, former RSPBA Adjudicator and not MacStig! Now that the RSPBA’s 2018 outdoor pipe band competition programme is in full swing I have been asked to give general views about some of the contest venues and observations about results etc., with a historical slant where possible.   The outdoor season started with a bang with five outdoor competitions over the same weekend – Dunbar and Bangor (Northern Ireland)…

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PP Ed’s Blog: Glasgow Pic/ Mary MacLeod/ Beattie Collection/ Games News/ NI President’s Charity

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My comments on the Lament for Mary MacLeod (see British Championships 2018 – Grade 1 Review) may have baffled some non-piobaireachd players in the pipe band world but you can listen to the whole 12 minute or so tune here (scroll down the page a bit) played by maestro Donald MacPherson and you might get an idea of what I was talking about. To pick and mix ‘tuney’ sections of ceol…

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British Pipe Band Championships 2018 – Review of Grade 2

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Some say his birls are legend, or maybe just leg end, others that he knows more about crop circles than the band variety….all we know is he’s called MacStig… Cometh the hour, cometh the band, although my spell check almost had ‘comets’… some of these bands are just like that – flashes of brightness and close to the edge. Adjudicators on duty for Grade 2 were Messrs Semple, Worrall, Mordaunt…

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British Pipe Band Championships 2018 – Grade 1 Review

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I arrived at Paisley around lunchtime on Saturday and after a coffee, picked up a programme (free) and headed over to the Grade 1 arena for the 2pm start of the British Pipe Band Championship . Readers will know all the usual caveats about the audience not being as close as the judges are to the bands, extraneous chatter etc, etc and this should be borne in mind when they read this…

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British Pipe Band Championships Underway in Glorious Sunshine

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The first major championship of the pipe band season, the British, are underway at the St James Playing Fields, Paisley, with 126 bands vying for honours across all grades. The RSPBA’s superb team of judges, stewards and officials were on duty from early morning and the first band performance begins at 10am. Grade 1 begins at 2pm, the bands playing in the following order: 1 Buchan Peterson 2 Glasgow Skye 3…

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