Difficult Music

On Sunday night the belter and I joined the parade of white hair up Granville Street towards the Vogue Theatre for the SFU Pipe Band concert. Besides a lot of bagpipes, I wasn’t sure what to expect. Would they just stand there on stage for an hour and a half? Would they march in place? Would it be all bagpipes all the time? Well, it was more like a Scottish variety show than anything else, with a wisecracking host, audience participation, highland flingers, a tap-dancing fiddler, a drum corps solo, and uncountable bagpipers in every conceivable configuration. There was even a bass guitarist and regular drum kit on stage for some rockin' bagpipe numbers.

I think I was most impressed by the solo bagpipe tunes. Sometimes the piper would do some fancy trills or bend notes in a way I’d never heard before—like Yngwie McMalmsteen or something. The crowd (must have been a sellout) was pretty excited by it, and judging by the punches she was landing on my arm, the belter was too. I think I’m going to be taken out to be fitted for a kilt soon.