Remembering Angus (from Shooglenifty)

Claire and I went to a Celtic Connections gig at the Glasgow Concert Hall. We met Mary and Megan at our AirBnb flat and Ubered up there. After a cold wait for a fire alarm to be silenced we got in, met up with Babs, Peigidh and Ang and got in the drink queue.

The first half was a changing lineup of people that Angus had played with. They were from all over Scotland, with a few special guests from Galicia and Rajasthan.

There was a really interesting version of Talking Head's This Must Be The Place. The Galicians featured three female singers with truly astounding voices. Their introduction described the shell shock that Shooglenifty wrought in Santiago when they first played - "So many children were conceived while their parents listened to Venus in Tweeds".

The second set was Shooglenifty with rotating fiddlers. Conrad Mollison replaced Quee on bass for one tune. And near the end the audience were invited to join in singing best of Queen in the style of a Gallic psalm. This was followed by a stoking finale with forty musicians onstage.

We got out at midnight after four hours of excellent music from more than 60 varied musicians. We headed to the after party at the Flying Duck and the fun continued. I caught up with Tammy and Yorick for the first time in decades. The last time I saw Tammy was when she left Scoraig after the final straw with Lawrence. She's had two more children since then, the youngest is 21. And I haven't seen Yorick since I left Glasgow in 1988. Nuff said.

Back at the AirBnb there are noisy parties going on everywhere. I've only got two hours before I need to get up again for my journey to Pennsylvania, so I was never going to get much sleep, but instead I'm going to get none. Should sleep well on the plane.