Inside the success of Shetland’s in-demand country music night

“WE NEVER anticipated this level of demand,” says Arthur Nicholson as he reflects on the success of the all-star local country music night he helped to form a couple of years ago.

The latest round of country gigs at Mareel – the seventh and eighth concerts so far – are taking place this coming weekend.

Like the dates before them, they quickly sold out with many people desperately looking for tickets on social media.

The premise appears fairly simple, but very effective: bring together a cast of some of Shetland’s top musicians to pay tribute to country and western artists.

Nicholson reckons there has been around 20 musicians who have now performed in the show.

So where did the idea first come from? “It all stems from Kenny Johnson inviting myself and Seth Travins around to his house for tunes not long after we were all coming out of lockdown,” Nicholson explains.

“I spotted that Hank Williams’ 100th birthday was coming up in a year or two, so booked Mareel on a whim.

“Towards the time the date was coming up, I started asking folk I knew if they’d like to be involved and that was the first concert.

“When the tickets sold out, I asked a few more and some also got in touch to ask if they could be involved.

“We did a repeat of that concert after hearing from enough people that said they would have like to have gone and since then we’ve done one every few months, this coming weekend will be the 7th and 8th.

“There’s a fairly large core group of musicians that have played all of the concerts so far and we’ve had a few one-off guest appearances from some familiar faces and some singers that don’t play live so often.”

The gigs this weekend, for instance, comes with a fairly impressive list of performers; David Sandison, Jack Robertson, Seth Travins, John-William Halcrow, Shareen Scollay, Bryan Gear, Sheila Duncan, Isaac Webb, Jenny Napier Keldie, Bernard Smith, Megan Nisbet, Lauren Johnson, Brian Nicholson, Kenny Johnson, Sarah McFadyen, Graham Malcolmson and Arthur Nicholson himself will all get on stage.

Nicholson, a well-known guitarist and vocalist for bands such as First Foot Soldiers and the Dead Pans, says it is no secret that country music is popular in Shetland.

He adds the reception the group have received at every gig has been “great”.

“I think one of the main reasons the concerts have been successful is that they’re a collective effort from a group of established, familiar local musicians with occasional appearances from less familiar singers,” Nicholson says.

“It’s a very supportive group and we all play to our strengths.

“With the abundance of talented singers and musicians in Shetland there’s plenty of other people I could think of to ask, but we’d very quickly run out of room on the stage if we asked them all.”

He says the high demand for tickets shows there is room in Shetland’s music scene for more gigs like it.

“We’d like to do them more often,” Nicholson adds, “but it’s a fair bit of time and work that goes into each show.”

In the past the show has put on nights on a particular theme, such as Hank Williams or the Highwaymen.

But this time around there is no particular theme, and everyone has chosen their material.

“Folk can expect a wide range of country tunes spanning the decades performed by a number of different singers and musicians,” Nicholson says.

“There has been a sprinkling of original tunes over several of the non-themed concerts and there will be a few this coming weekend.

“We’d like to keep that going in the future, but it’s also good to play songs that are more familiar with the audience.”

With demand remaining high, there has been some suggestion for the event to move to a larger venue, such as the Clickimin.

But for now, the show is staying put at the Mareel auditorium.

“Playing the raked seats in a room where you can hear a pin drop is a different experience for the musicians and the audience,” Nicholson says.

“Mareel is our purpose-built venue after all, the sound in there is great and I like to see the auditorium being used as it was intended when it was first conceived.”

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