THE overall format of the evening at Edinburgh's new Picture House proved a winning one, alternating the concert sets with interludes of ceilidh dancing.
The year just passed marked a decade in existence for the song-based quintet Malinky, and th
ey rounded off the anniversary in strikingly assured fashion. Their balance of youthful vim and seasoned maturity underpinned a tight, bright, forceful but subtly arrayed sound.
Music for the ceilidh was provided, under the wilfully dire nom de guerre of Chuting Blancs, by three rather better-known names – Breabach's Calum MacCrimmon on whistles and bagpipes, Anna Massie on guitar, and Malinky's Mike Vass again on fiddle. Although an earlyish kick-off meant that the room took a while to fill, they kept the dance-floor busy.
Grace, Hewat & Polwart gave fresh definition to the word ballsy
but as the midnight hour approached, it was time to forego the doubtless frenzied euphoria incited by Shooglenifty at the Picture House, in favour of that being whipped up on Princes Street by the Peatbog Faeries.
Thoroughly deserving winners of the Best Live Act title at last month's Scots Trad Music Awards, the Skye-based nine-piece crowned a triumphant year with a resplendent firestorm of fiddle, bagpipes and brass, Celtic and world-music flavours and blistering dance beats – a fitting prelude to the pyrotechnics they ushered in.
