Tag: The Proclaimers

Electric Fields Festival – Part 1

Previous subscribers to this blog will know that I was a major fan of the Wickerman Festival and had great fun at the 14 annual shindigs that were held. Since the last gathering in 2015, our gig crew have been hunting for a comparable event and the nearest we have achieved since was the Electric Fields Festival we attended in September 2018. With that historical context I thought this would be appropriate content for my 300th blog and as the words flowed it resulted in additionally being my 301st!

The festival slowly built from an initial friend gathering into a fully fledged event in 2016 and the chosen location was Drumnlarig Castle in Thornhill, Dumfries and Galloway, about a 90-minute drive from Glasgow, Edinburgh and Carlisle. It utilised the bonny grounds of the category A listed castle which was built in the late 16th century which carried the name of the ‘Pink Palace’ due to the finely hewed glinting red sandstone exterior.    

Drumnlarig Castle. Image Credit sobt.co.uk

It is apparently very grand and ornate on the interior with the small matter of its 120 rooms, 4 towers and 17 turrets. It also contains the Buccleuch Collection which houses a rare Rembrandt of ‘An Old Woman Reading’ and renowned 17th century French furniture and silver. They did also have a Leonardo Da Vinci painting that was stolen in 2003 but recovered in 2007 from an address in Glasgow.

There is also an old roman fort in the Southeast corner of the grounds which was featured in the Time Team programme, and it has been used as a filming location for the TV series Outlander. The estate is rarely opened to the public, but they did provide permission for the festival to be held there between 2016 and 2018.

The nearest conurbation to the site is the sleepy village of Thornhill with a vast population of around 1500 inhabitants which lies on the edge of the River Nith. It contains a couple of pubs and the seemingly obligatory Chinese takeaway alongside a small cottage hospital.

Famous ‘Thornhillians’ include the explorer Joseph Thomson who has the eminent Thomson’s gazelle named after him, which are also sometimes referred to as a ‘tommie’. Another is ex-professional golfer Andrew Coltart who is now a respected commentator on Sky Sports.

A ‘Tommie’. Image Credit animalcorner.org

Since 2012 the Thornhill Music Festival has been staged there, with the original event being instigated by the long-standing Scottish blues combo The Lewis Hamilton Band (not the Formula 1 driver!). That particular band are still active and are regularly on the road.

The festival is still on the roster and the 2025 version took place on the May Day Bank Holiday at the Farmer Arms in the village. One of the headliners was The Cherry Pinks who I saw in 2024 when they played the Wickerman Fringe event. The pub coincidentally won the Dumfries and Stewarty CAMRA branch pub of the year for 2025.  

Thornhill Music Festival flyer. Image Credit facebook.com

After three successful years in Drumnlarig, Electric Fields organisers made the ill-fated decision to relocate to SWG3 in Glasgow due to logistical challenges and increasing costs. However then due to complaints from attendees and ticketing issues, the festival folded, and the 2019 version never took place, and it has never been rebooted.

I could not attend the 2017 carnival as we were in the process of relocating to Manchester that very weekend. Nevertheless, in my absence the boys headed up there to make a debut appearance with Jesus and Mary Chain, Car Seat Headrest and Pins amongst others on the bill.

They lodged at ‘Dewhurst Towers’ in Kirkcudbright and utilised the old Wickerman nemesis of Mr Allen’s taxis for the commute to and from the site. The one downside they referenced was that it was a long way to travel as it was forty miles and over an hour each leg of the journey.   

I ensured there were no ‘life events’ disbarring me making a pilgrimage up to the 2018 gathering. Travel lessons were learnt from the previous year and lodgings were sought in the vibrant town of Dumfries.   

In 1306, Greyfriars Kirk in Dumfries was the location of Robert the Bruce, the future King of Scots, slaying his rival John Comyn III of Badenoch and during World War II the Norwegian armed forces in exile brigade was based there. Loreburn Hall, known locally as The Drill Hall has held concerts from Big Country, The Proclaimers and Black Sabbath.

Famous ‘Doonhamers’ include in their ranks Henry Duncan, founder of the world’s first commercial savings bank, J.M Barrie, author of Peter Pan, John Lawrie, Private Fraser in Dad’s Army, musicians Ray Wilson, once lead singer of Genesis and Calvin Harris. The final ex-resident is Kirsty Wark, the excellent broadcaster who undertook the heartbreaking interview of my favourite author Iain Banks shortly before his premature passing.

Leeds Venues 8 to 11

Continuing on the monorail of the 2014 Live at Leeds festival brought us to our next venue, Leeds Town Hall. Originally built in the 1850’s in a Baroque style on The Headrow, it was the tallest building in Leeds for over a century and it housed the law courts and council chambers and a public hall and was opened by Queen Victoria.

These elements were gradually relocated via the completion of the Civic Hall in 1933 and the Leeds Crown Court in 1993. At that point it morphed into primarily a concert, conference, and wedding venue. It is currently undergoing an extensive refurbishment in time for the 2023 Leeds city-wide cultural festival.

Leeds Town Hall. Image Flickr.

We arrived at the Victoria Hall which was a really striking location and contained a 6,600-pipe organ, the largest in Europe. The band on stage was Lanterns on the Lake, a five piece from Newcastle on Tyne who produce some swirly dreamy shoegaze with hushed female vocals, what’s not to like, I hear Yeah Yeah Yeahs and Cocteau Twins in their music. They were subsequently nominated for the Mercury Music Prize in 2020.

Unfortunately, as is the wont of these multi-event festivals we arrived late to their set and only caught their last two tracks, including their soaring outro. That was a crying shame as they sounded an extremely vibrant live act and I have never yet seen them since.

The building on Cookbridge Street that the Leeds O2 Academy is now housed in has a long history. It was originally opened in 1885 by Prince Albert and is a grade II listed gothic building. It was originally named the Coliseum where it staged circus shows and political gatherings. For the majority of the 20th century, it was the home to a cinema, television studio and a bingo hall.

In 1992 it became a bespoke music venue under the moniker Town and Country Club and Stereophonics and Stone Roses graced the stage there. It closed in 2000, before reopening the following year after refurbishment as Creation Nightclub before converting back to a singular music venue in 2007 under Academy’s ownership.   As with many venues in Leeds, the chosen band for the opening night on 08/10/08 was the local boys Kaiser Chiefs. Over the years the Pogues, Anthrax, Proclaimers and Deftones have played there.

Despite the striking exterior which could resemble a church, we entered into the cavernous main room with its capacity of 2300 which was a tad soulless. There is apparently also a smaller venue downstairs which can contain 400 punters. On stage was Ella Eyre, a soul singer from Ealing in West London, the previous year she had featured on a number one single with Rudimental. It was not my Yorkshire cup of tea and was a little warbly for my tastes.

Leeds O2 Academy. Image Credit able2uk.com

Progressing onwards brought us to Leeds Met Stage contained within what is now known as Leeds Beckett University. They have two campuses, one in Headingley and the other in the city side where we were located. It is a thriving establishment with 24k students and 185k alumni worldwide.

On the stage were The Bug, a dance music collective formed by London based producer Kevin Martin. They had been in existence since 1997 with an ever-changing line up.

We then sallied over to Leeds Met Stage 2 where we had a little wait before the Canadian power punks PUP (abbreviated from Pathetic Use of Potential) hit the stage.  They had only released their self-titled debut album six months earlier and they were very engaging, energetic, and downright good fun!