Shetland Bus

What is now becoming an annual tradition of making it across to Celtic Connections for one concert a year (well we've managed it last year and this year with more or less the same core group, and we managed it a few years ago with some other friends from the west coast) involved an evening of contrasting pleasures. We met up with friends at the CCA in its much lauded Saramago cafe bar. We won't be do any such lauding, however, because while our excellent starters arrived on time, it appears that our main courses were not called in the kitchen and so hadn't arrived before one of our number went up to the bar to enquire about them. By this tsage, we needed to leave within a few minutes to get to the concert venue in time to collect our tickets. Not good. We left without main courses and had to buy chips on Sauciehall Street to sustain us. Very unimpressed, although they largely gave us what we did have for free.

On to the venue, and the Irish warm up band Realta were excellent; but nothing had really prepared us for the emotional power of the rendering of the Shetland Bus, by Jenna and Bethany Reid. This was a special performance because it also involved National Youth Brass of Scotland, which added a depth to the music which I imagine is not there with just the 'ordinary' ensemble (not that they are ordinary musicians, but you get my drift).

The Shetland Bus is the nickname for a clandestine special operations group that operated between Shetland and Norway during the second world war to help with actions against German forces, deliver supplies and ammunition to resistance groups, and to bring out Norwegians and others who were under threat, and this particular 'musical happening' (words and music) is all about the experience of one member of this group, Jan Baalsrud, who was the only member of the crew of a ship that sailed across from Shetland in March 1943 to evade capture after they were betrayed by a shopkeeper with whom they had made contact, thinking he was a resistance member. The words are wonderfully narrated by Martyn McLaughlin. Funnily enough, Shetland Bus was on during our stay in Shetland last summer and we nearly went to one of the gigs then.

After the performance we trundled back to the station and hopped on the 10pm train. I searched for Shetland Bus on twitter and ended up tweeting at Martyn McLaughlin to express my appreciation. This subsequently provoked a text from the same friends with whom we enjoyed Celtic Connections a few years ago, who happened to be in town, enjoying the beer. Want to meet up, they said? Well, yes, gladly, but unfortunately the train had just pulled out of the station. Bah. Bad timing and social media fail. My own fault for not tweeting or facebooking our plans or whereabouts earlier on, I guess. Or them for failing to do likewise.