Features / Roots night to celebrate quality of local music
THIS FRIDAY will see local country-leaning music groups take centre stage at Mareel as part of a night billed as “Shetland Roots”.
The Shetland Arts concert will feature four acts and will be headlined by the Sheila Henderson Band. Also on the bill are May & Mackie, Skerries singer Alison Kay Ramsay and up-and-coming Yell duo Megan Nisbet and Lauren Johnson.
Henderson said she had spoken about doing a ticketed, local-only music night at the North Ness for a while now.
She has been widely praised for her efforts to stimulate the grassroots vocal music scene with the increasingly popular monthly singer-songwriter nights she has organised in the past couple of years.
“I quite often get told that the quality of the local music that we have is equal – or better – than some of the acts that are brought in,” she said. “It’s about supporting your local bands.
“Country music has always been a form that’s quite popular to quite a range of folk, so we’ll hopefully see quite a lot of bums on seats – or dancing, it’ll be cabaret seating with enough room for dancing if folk want to.”
Henderson is especially pleased that Megan, 13, and Lauren, 16, who won this year’s Shetland’s Got Talent and then sang with Madison Violet at last month’s Shetland Folk Festival, will get a chance to perform some songs with her band.
“They’re kind of new to the whole scene, and I see them in a similar way to when I started singing,” she said.
“They’re going to do a peerie spot on their own, then get up and do a couple of songs with the band too. I remember it being a bit of a buzz in my teenage years to get to go and play with a band.”
You can buy tickets to Shetland Roots this Friday night, priced £12, at Shetland Box Office.
• Meanwhile internationally acclaimed Shetland act Rock Salt & Nails will return to the islands for a Fiddle Frenzy “fringe” event at Mareel on Saturday 2 August.
The band have been together some 23 years, successfully fusing a myriad of traditional music elements with contemporary music and song in their high power, high energy live act.
Alan McLeod of local promoters Klub Revolution said he was “delighted” to be collaborating with Shetland Arts to “bring one of Shetland’s most successful bands home for a special frenzy fringe show”.
“Rock Salt & Nails have consistently proved themselves as a must-see act for over two decades, and we’re sure that they’ll blow the roof off Mareel on their debut show in Shetland’s flagship venue,” McLeod added. Tickets go on sale this Friday from Shetland Box Office.
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