Skerryvore, Edinburgh review: 'if the Tartan Army had a house band...'

Skerryvore, Corn Exchange, Edinburgh ★★★★

Back in June the Tiree-founded, Glasgow-based folk-rock group Skerryvore were one of the bands making the pilgrimage out to Boston to keep the Tartan Army entertained. Watching them live in Edinburgh at the weekend as they began their Scottish tour, the overlap was obvious. If the Tartan Army had a house band, Skerryvore would be at the head of the list of applicants.

Their music is fun-loving, romantic and steeped in a sense of the mores of the Scottish trad scene. With seven players onstage, more typically-configured vocal rock songs like the stomping, emotive Eye of the Storm, the anthemic Celtic rock of Path to Home and the wistful, uplifting The Sea That Sings were interspersed with noisy, exuberant instrumental reels.

At various points, the latter pieces were buoyed by the attack of dual bagpipes, a pair of accordions, or the more mellifluous sound of two whistles, the band switching instruments around singer Alec Dalglish’s noisy rock guitar, which at one point blared out riffs worthy of Def Leppard. During Live Forever he worked the crowd like a ceilidh caller, coordinating their actions in response.

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Like the Tartan Army, Skerryvore have existed since the turn of this century in relative isolation; in the former case through lack of big tournament qualification, in the latter largely through being famed on the wider Scottish trad scene, without a mainstream breakthrough until their most recent album, 2023’s Tempus, which hit number one in Scotland and broke the UK top 40.

They’ll be hoping to do even better with the new record Beautiful Mistakes, released on the day of this gig and well-represented here by songs like the Western country ballad title track and the FM radio rock of While I’m Breathing, with guest singer Tamzene. As the numbers onstage doubled with the presence of a small pipe band for the rousing closer Take My Hand, it felt like Skerryvore are a band in the middle of a moment they’re ready to seize.

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