Glasgow Letter - 21.11.24

Last Saturday night, the legendary Skye band brought down the curtain on a wonderfully innovative musical journey. 

It started as four teenagers straight out of high school looking, in their own words, “to make some music and have a bit of fun”. 

It finished with 2,500 fans screaming for more in the O2 Academy. 

A sell-out crowd gathered in the iconic venue on Eglinton Street to pay tribute to this extraordinary legacy and give the band the send off they so richly deserve. 

Glasgow was a fitting setting for their final flourish given the city played host to some of their most memorable shows. 

I recall attending many of these shows as a student at Glasgow University before they were selling out large capacity rooms. 

The energy wherever they played was always electric. 

Regrettably, I couldn’t make it to the show on Saturday but the clips I saw on Instagram of their long-time collaborators, Sian, leading iconic Gaelic songs such as Air Fàir an Là and Runrig’s An Toll Dubh  were incredibly powerful and emotive. 

Sian - made up of Eilidh Cormack, Ellen MacDonald, and Ceitlin LR Smith - have shared many a stage with the Niteworks boys but few performances will have been as emotionally charged as this one. 

Likewise, Beth Malcolm who joined the band onstage one last time for some Scots songs. 

Two guests who perhaps felt the nostalgia most of all were Fiona MacAskill, who has played fiddle with the band from their early days, and Deirdre Graham, drummer Ruairidh’s sister, who has also been a regular guest since the beginning. 

The Niteworks lads are far too modest to think of themselves as tradition bearers but, as a band whose music is inspired by the history of their native island, they can hopefully now reflect that they have written themselves into that history and left an enduring mark on their beloved Gaelic cultural heritage.