Featuring my favorite band from Scotland called Runrig. Although they retired last year after 45 years of making tremendous music, their songs will live on forever…
The Last Dance – August 17th & 18th 2018
Runrig’s final official concert was held in a beautiful park located at the base of Stirling Castle in August of 2018. The park was filled with over 25,000 fans each night on that very special weekend, never to be forgotten! The band is releasing a DVD of the event, and here is one of the songs entitled “Pride of the Summer”:
…and here is a list of just a few of my favorite Runrig tunes:
All Things Must Change
In Search of Angels (both versions! Rory’s and Brian’s)
Road and the River
Every River
And We’ll Sing
Many of these can be found on their CD called “The Ones that Got Away”. It’s not entirely over, though… You can hear more from ‘the boys’ as they pursue new endeavours. Founding members Rory and Calum Macdonald have formed the Band from Rockall, for example.
Destination: North Uist
As I was listening to Over Land and Sea from Runrig’s Proterra album, it occurred to me that I am starting and finishing overseas travels with islands in different hemispheres: Fiji in the southern hemisphere, with its shortened winter days (sun setting around 5:45pm Fiji time) and Scotland’s North Uist in the northern hemisphere, where I look forward to very long and hopefully sunny days. I tried to prove these hemisphere experiences by filming water circulating down the sink in different directions, but just my luck it only speeds directly down into the drain. Oh well.
Once on North Uist, I plan to drive to the town of Lochmaddy where there is a museum called Taigh Chearsabhagh. For a few months this summer, the museum is exhibiting photos taken by fans at The Last Dance concerts. Here is a photograph of the rainbow which appeared over the band during the Friday concert that weekend. Guess you could say that Runrig was my little pot of gold at the end of the rainbow:
Songs from Around the World
Here is a sampling of music that I have come across during this journey…
Fiji
Mongolia
Songs from these two CDs are featured in the videos below…
Kyrgyzstan
Kazakhstan
Azerbaijan
Belgium
A popular, traditional group in Belgium is called ‘De Romeos’:
Scotland
… and it all comes back to Runrig, as the fans gathered at Glasgow’s Royal Concert Hall for the premiere of The Last Dance video production. A very special night – especially when the boys sang together a capella style, with the audience singing along. Quite an evening!
The song that they performed (with the audience singing along):
Hearts of Olden Glory
Islands to Glens 