It’s fast approaching the end of 2009 and with it the end of Scotland’s Year of Homecoming and the celebration of the 250th anniversary of the national bard, Robert Burns.  We took part in a couple of big events to mark the end of this celebration year, beginning in Glasgow with Homecoming Live.  Some of the biggest names in the Scottish music scene came together for joint concerts in the Clyde Auditorium and the SECC but it was definitely the Chilli’s who were the hardest working as we played in both venues!  We opened the show at a packed Clyde Auditorium, whipping the crowd into a frenzy of Scottishness before Hue and Cry took to the stage, and while they were just getting settled into their first song, we were darting across the road to the SECC to do it all over again!

It’s a great pleasure for us to be able to help celebrate one of Scotland’s favourite sons and what better place to do that than in Dumfries, where he lived and worked for a large part of his life.  And so we headed down to the southwestern corner of Scotland for the ‘Dumfries Fling’ the day after our SECC and Clyde Auditorium double-whammy. The cold weather did nothing to keep the ‘Doonhamers’ away and a huge crowd filled the town centre to help us close this special commemorative year in real Scottish style.  There was an even more special surprise at the end of our performance as we were joined onstage by Santa Claus himself to turn on the Dumfries Christmas lights!

A couple of weeks later we were down in Catterick, at the Bourlon Army Barracks to perform for the annual christmas party of the Scots Guards.  It was a real honour for us to meet so many brave service men and women and we were extremely humbled by the fact that some of them referred to us as heroes! It was a great fun event and we were extremely well looked after and we had a fantastic support act in the Pipes and Drums of the Scots Guards.  In a great ‘Cribs’ style moment, this rather happy looking chappy was delighted to show off his ‘wheels’ to Chris and Mal!

A week after that and we were up in Dunfermline to play to a sold out Alhambra theatre.  This beautiful looking old theatre provided a great setting for our Chilli Christmas Special.  We had a few surprises for the audience this night, including and Elf handing out sweeties and another special appearance from Santa, although this time he had a very suspicious looking red mohican hairdo and a red guitar!

We were also joined onstage by a miniature version of our G-man, a young lad whose name was, strangely enough, Gregor! He even had a mini red guitar and a mini red Mohawk! When Stuart spoke to him on the stage, mini Gregor told us that he’d been playing guitar for 5 years, even though he’s only 4 years old – now that’s dedication for you!  Many people did think that this was a stunt organised by us but it was honestly just a chance encounter in a restaurant prior to the gig that introduced us to the mini G-man.

It was a great night altogether and a great opportunity to say:

MERRY CHRISTMAS FROM THE CHILLI’S!!

Sometimes the Chillibrains are worked so hard that we forget about important events but luckily we have some eagle-eyed fans to point this out to us!  We must apologise to the lovely people in Fehraltorf Switzerland for missing them out of the last blog. We’d travelled to Switzerland on Saturday 1st of August for the 9th Annual Fehraltorf Highland Games.  With Pipe Bands Contests, Dancing and Heavy Events such as Caber Tossing and Axe-throwing it was like a taste of home away from home, except it was sunny and warm!  It was our debut in the country but it was clear that many people were very happy to see us there.  We also learned an important fact here which is that Switzerland has it’s own kind of electricity plug sockets! A wee bit of panic for us when we first discovered this but Super Kev soon got it sorted.

There was a great atmosphere around the games through the day and we drew in quite a crowd just for the soundcheck!  That was nothing compared with later that night though as the eager Swiss crowd filled the tent and gave us a tremendous welcome to the country.  We are delighted to be able to say that we will be returning next year for the 10th Anniversary, we can’t wait! We must make a special mention to a new friend and fan of the band who we met in Switzerland, Conny Koenig, who acted as our interpreter and tour guide for out time in Switzerland.  As well as looking after us on the day of our gig Conny also very kindly took us on a wee tour around Zurich the day after, although we’d taken some of the Scottish weather with us and spent most of the day trying to find shelter from the rain! Recently we’ve been out getting some new photos taken for promotional purposes so here’s a wee sneaky peek at us hanging out in the cold north of Scotland.



As I finish typing this we’re sitting in our hotel in a chilly Serbia, where we’re performing to help Chivas and Ballantines Whisky celebrate the 200th anniversary of the birth of George Ballantine.  On the plane across Willie happened to bump into Jim Kerr of Simple Minds, who says he’s a big fan of the band and loves watching us on Youtube, a wee bit of Willie magic later and we’re all on the guest list to go and see them perform tonight here in Belgrade! Take care Chilli fans and we’ll see you soon!
Chillipipers x x

A Big Chilli Roundup

Well it’s been a long time coming but it’s finally time for another super roundup of all the great gigs we’ve had recently.  The blog’s been a bit neglected as we haven’t had time to get near to a computer, but with some much needed time off, we’ve a chance to reflect on some of our biggest and best gigs, so lets not wait any longer and get right into it!

Way back at the end of July, we performed at The Gathering in Edinburgh, one of the main events to mark Scotland’s Year of Homecoming, and with just under 50,000 people from 40 countries attending, certainly one of the biggest!  It was billed as the largest clan gathering in recent times and there were highland games, heavyweight events, pipe bands and much more, but it was the music stage that seemed to draw the biggest crowd and, as we took the stage on the Saturday it was to one of our biggest ever audiences, a thrilling experience!  Even as we opened the day’s events the following day a good few thousand people braved the typical Scottish weather to help us go down a ‘storm!’

After having played at one of the biggest Scottish Gatherings earlier, we then travelled a bit further afield in mid August, to one of the biggest Irish festivals in the world, the Milwaukee Irish Fest.  Held in Milwaukee’s custom built and permanent festival site, this was another new and fantastic adventure for us.  For four nights in a row we unleashed Bagrock to a whole new audience and judging by the reaction we were getting, they definitely enjoyed it.  They do say that everything is bigger in America and this was definitely true of the Irish Fest and we certainly look forward to our return there in 2010; if you missed it this year, make sure you’re there next time!

A couple of busy travel weekends followed this as we travelled to Spain for Festival Internacional Plasencia.  The Spanish love their late night festivals and, as we headlined the Friday night, we didn’t come offstage until 2am on the Saturday morning.  We got a great response from the lively crowd but unfortunately there was no time to soak it up.  As soon as we finished, we packed everything up and went straight to the airport, as we had to get back to Scotland for a gig in Campbeltown that night! For once luck was on our side and all flights went on time so we arrived for the Mull of Kintyre Music Festival in plenty of time. There’s always a great crowd in Campbeltown and this night was no exception. We were pleased to be joined again by the fantastic Kintyre Schools Pipe Band, who had also accompanied us onstage just over a year ago at the filming of our live DVD.

The following week was another busy one, starting with a gig for the Edge Festival, part of the Edinburgh Festival, at the HMV Picture House in Edinburgh in the middle of the week, and we were on the road again that weekend.  We started up in Turriff on the Friday for the Wizard Festival.  The notorious winds of the north east of Scotland almost put a stop to this whole event with tents flying everywhere, but once everything was secured and the winds died down a little, it went ahead, if not quite to schedule.  The patient crowd had not lost any of their enthusiasm in the wait and there was a great atmosphere in the tent as we played.

We left from Turriff and travelled to the other side of the country for a triumphant return to the Cowal Games in Dunoon on the Saturday.  When we played there last year we were overwhelmed at the response and crowd that we got so we were looking forward to doing it again, with a bigger band and what turned out to be a bigger crowd than last time! As well as the official Chilli Dancers we had additional dance support from the Chilli WAGs at the side of the stage, well done to all of them!  As we said last year, we all have a great affinity with the Cowal Games and it was once again a huge pleasure for us to bring the Bagrock to Dunoon.

Still not finished for the weekend though, on the Sunday we returned to another gig from last year, the Scottish Young Carer’s Festival in West Linton.  This great event provides respite for young carers who perhaps look after sick parents or family members and we were glad to be able to return again to see some familiar faces, some new ones, but overall, lots and lots of smiling faces!

The following week brought yet another return gig as we travelled back to “The Broch” a.k.a. Fraserburgh.  We have some great friends and fans up in Fraserburgh and it was good to be able to catch up with them again there.  One of the fans couldn’t make it though, but she did have a good excuse as she had just given birth! Congratulations to Andrew and Emma and their new baby girl, Fiona Elizabeth. We also have a great young piper fan named Danny who we’ve met up with a few times, you may remember the last time we were in Fraserburgh his Aunt made us some amazing Gingerbread Chillimen, well this year she surpassed this by making us an awesome Bagrock in the Broch cake!

 

                 

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We’ve been travelling even further than normal recently with a triumphant return to Malaysia’s capital city, Kuala Lumpur.  Last year we visited KL to help promote Scottish culture and tourism with the Scottish Executive, and whilst there we met up with a few members of the Selangor St Andrews Society, including Chieftain Paul Henderson.  The society is based in Kuala Lumpur and the guys went out of their way to show us some great hospitality as well as the sights of this marvellous city.  Little did we know that they had an ulterior motive in trying to entice us back there this year – and it worked!
We were returning to perform at the Society’s annual dinner/concert event, something they’ve been gaining quite a reputation for in recent years and, as the Chieftain himself commented, this promised to be the loudest to date!
Before reaching Kuala Lumpur though, the guys had also put us in touch with their sister St Andrews Society in Singapore, so it was here we travelled to first to begin our Southern Asian adventure.  Much like footballers travelling to hotter countries, we felt the need for a bit of acclimatisation so when we arrived on the Wednesday, we performed a smaller, more intimate performance at a Scottish themed bar and restaurant.  The temperature certainly took its toll on us but luckily there was lots of cold Scottish beer afterwards to refresh us and make us feel at home!  There was a great turn out and we thank everyone involved, we certainly felt welcome on our first visit to the city.
The Thursday was the main event for us in Singapore for the St Andrews Society and they had organised a great nightclub venue for us in the city called Howl at The Moon. It was a multi national audience with Singapore locals, Australians, Americans, a good dose of Scots and everything else in between.  As the place filled up, the temperature rose, and then kept rising to boiling point as we rocked their Singaporean socks off!  There were enough Saltires flying to almost make us think we were in Scotland (were it not for the temperature!) and the crowd reaction and dancing told us that everyone had a great time.
We’d like to thank the manager and all the staff at Howl at the Moon for looking after us and showing us some great hospitality after the gig and also thank Scott, Andy and George for making it happen for us, and also for ensuring we made it to Kuala Lumpur safely!
The following morning we made the journey up to KL by bus, which gave us the opportunity to take in the sights of the countryside and, more importantly, catch up on some much needed sleep.  With all the travelling and gigging, we’d never quite allowed our bodies the chance to get used to the time difference!  We were met by the guys from the St Andrews Society who took us to our hotel for a short rest before taking us out again to enjoy the nightlife of KL.  This began with the magnificent views of the city from the Trader’s Hotel’s open air “Sky Bar”, where we met up with a few more of the members of the Selangor St. Andrews Society, before we stopped in for food at the 60th birthday party of Roger, another of the Society’s members, at the very grand and ancient Royal Selangor Club. Afterwards we moved onto the Hard Rock Café and the rest of the night…
The next day we made the very short journey from our hotel rooms to the venue, which was handily enough in the function room of the same hotel and so just involved a journey in a lift downstairs!
The society had ensured a fantastic venue for the occasion, with a huge stage for us to jump around on, and ticket sales had gone so well that the whole room was crammed with tables for the dinner. Apparently they had so much interest for the event that they had to turn people away.  After a fantastic meal where we were each at different tables mixing with a huge variety of guests, our intro music kicked in an we rose from our individual positions to make our way through the tables to the stage, drawing in their attention as we did so.  We had been told beforehand that generally when the band starts to play, most of the guests make their way out to the bar and congregate there but on this occasion, hardly a single person left the function room till we had finished our third encore!
It was a fantastic night and we thank everyone at the society and everyone that came along to make it so memorable.  A special mention of thanks must go to Carol, who produced the fantastic souvenir programmes for the night, some great work there!
On The Sunday, we had some free time before leaving and Paul, Myra and Hector were again kind enough to take us out for some sightseeing and shopping including the Batu Caves, the KL Tower, Chinatown and also the local music store for some extra percussion items!
We really thank the society so much for organising this, and also their sponsors for making it possible, to Chieftain Paul and his girlfriend Myra, Hector, Alastair, Carol, Sue and everyone else we met along the way, thank you and if we all keep our fingers crossed, we’ll see you all again!
Back home, after the long, long journey, we had a few days to rest and recuperate, which was certainly needed, then a few wee gigs before flying out again, but this time a much shorter flight, across to the Isle of Man to play for the bike fans of the TT.
We had an idea beforehand that a crowd of bikers would be up for a good show, and we certainly weren’t disappointed!  The Isle of Man TT attracts people from all over and as they crammed into the grounds of the Villa Marina we knew we were in for a good time.  The crowd gave as good as they got and I think we had as good a time as they did, if not better!  Thanks to Dawn and Seamus and all his team at the Villa Marina, yet another place that we’d love to return to!
We’ve plenty coming up to keep us busy, including a concert at Alness Academy this weekend and Dundee’s Whitehall theatre on the 4th of July and then more European travels in July.  As always, keep your eye on the website for details of when you can see us live or just generally keep up to date with the all the goings on here in Chilliland, and we’ll see you here again soon!

Chillipiper
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Our 2009 spring tour came to an end recently but there’s been no time to rest on our laurels as the summer is approaching and we’ve been as busy as ever.
The tour was a great success, with sell out shows every night, and we’d like to give out big thanks to everyone who helped to make it so good and especially everyone that came along and bought tickets to see us in Pitlochry, Inverness, Oban, Dunoon, Dunfermline, Arbroath and Galashiels.  It really was great fun for us, to be able to return to places we’ve had success in the past such as Inverness, Oban and Dunoon, but also to be able to take the Chilli show to new places such as Arbroath and Galashiels and entertain a whole new set of fans. 
A special thanks to the support acts for the tour, Stevie Lawrence and Fiona Cuthill, Ruaridh Macmillan, and Craig Jeffrey, and also all the local pipe bands who gave us so much support along the way.
To finish off in style, we returned to Glasgow and rocked the Arches, with a little help from our friends Skerryvore.
The ‘Hardest Working Musician on Tour’ award must go to Stevie Lawrence who, as well as playing with us, also provided the support with fiddler Fiona Cuthill at the concerts in Pitlochry.  With two evening performances plus a matinee, this amounted to six gigs in two days for Stevie, PLUS the duo had already performed at a festival in the afternoon before our first evening concert!
With the tour out of the way, we had a full schedule of gigs to keep us busy and rack up some more travel miles.
Our first trip took us to France and the little town of Evian (yes, where the water comes from!) to play a concert organised by Dick Reader and the Whisky Connoisseurs Club.  The venue was a fantastic building, which was made entirely of wood, and even had some trees growing at the back of the stage!  The concert went really well and the Evian crowd was very appreciative, and we had support provided by the Wallace Pipe Band from Malta.  The following night we were guests at the Whisky Connoisseurs Annual Dinner, where Stuart had the honour of being inaugurated as a Connoisseur.  Many thanks to Dick and his fellow Connoisseurs for inviting us across and to the Wallace Pipe Band who made the trip even more fun, hopefully we’ll make it to Malta sometime soon!
Back home in the UK and we were up and down the country like a yo-yo!
After the gig at the Arches in Glasgow, we jumped in the bus to go down to Norwich for a gig on the Saturday, then back in the bus and back up to Inverness for another gig on the Sunday where, bizarrely enough, we bumped into Sean William Scott, a.k.a. “The Stiffler “ from the film American Pie!
The following weekend was even busier, starting with three gigs in one day on the Saturday!  We began in Inverary, opening the Spirit of the West festival, in the fantastic setting of the Inverary Castle grounds, many thanks to His Grace The Duke for allowing us to use his back garden!  From there we went to Perth to perform at the PKAVS Party in the Park, a fantastic fundraising event, check out www.pkavs.org.uk for more details.  The wet weather did nothing to dampen the crowd’s spirits and we had another great gig before heading off again, up to St Andrews for a corporate event.  We stayed in St Andrews that night, and then made the long journey down the next day to Shepley, near Manchester, for the Shepley Spring Festival.
This was our first time at an English Folk festival and we were quite surprised to see a few Red Hot Chilli Pipers t-shirts in the crowd. We got a great reaction and the crowd were very enthusiastic, even though the weather was yet again trying to ruin the mood.
 After some rest in Shepley that night, we travelled back up the country to Ayr, where we were returning to perform again at the ‘Burns and a’ That Festival’ and played in the fantastic Spiegeltent set up in the town’s Wellington Square.
Some well deserved rest midweek , then we were back on the road again the following weekend as we travelled down to Cirencester in the south of England to play at the May Ball of the Royal Agricultual College.  The College grounds provided a fantastic setting as we performed in the ‘Big Top’. It was another fun event as we helped the students finish off their night in style.  We stayed for a wee while to enjoy the hospitality and enjoy some of the other acts performing, including some cool dance moves from a group called “Signature”.
We left Cirencester in the early hours of the morning for the long journey back up to Ayrshire, this time to Mauchline for the Holy Fair.  We seem to have been plagued by rain along the way recently but yet again the crowds still came out and filled the streets to watch our performance.  Thanks to all the organisers and also thanks to the local sports complex who kindly allowed us somewhere to shower and refresh ourselves before taking to the stage after our long journey!
So we’ve really been putting some miles onto the Chillibago in the past few weeks but it has a chance to relax now as we travel even further afield this week to Singapore and Kuala Lumpur, where we are performing for the St Andrews Society.  We met some of these guys last year when we were in Kuala Lumpur and they’ve invited us back there to perform for them, definitely promises to be yet another great Chilli experience, we can’t wait!
One last thing, we found out this month that our live DVD, Blast Live, has gone triple-platinum! Huge thanks to everyone out there who bought it and made this possible, it is all of you who make us so successful and give us so much enjoyment , so thank you!

Chillipiper
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More European travels for the band recently as we returned to a couple of our favorite gigs from the past.  As we mentioned previously, Ljubjana, capital of Slovenia, was where the band first performed with the addition of a guitarist and drumkit player so it was with great pleasure that we returned there to perform again for the Chivas whisky group.  Always a great night with Chivas and the hospitality is second to none (as long as you like whisky!).
From Slovenia, we travelled on to Luxembourg and a return to the Zeltik Festival.  Last year, organizer John Rech made sure we were well looked after and had a great time so we were delighted to return this year to fill the headline slot.  Carlos Nunez played a brilliant set before us and the packed Zeltik tent had a fantastic atmosphere when we came on.  We were pleased to be joined onstage by some of the members of the Luxembourg Pipe Band, who we had met last year.  Thanks to everyone involved who made this yet another memorable trip for the band.
Back home the following week, and we had a special performance at the Gleneagles hotel with opera singer Tony Henry.  Black and red was the theme of the evening and the guests got a real treat.  Alongside the sumptuous surroundings and lovely dinner at the hotel, they got to enjoy performances from both acts as well as ask questions, making a much more intimate experience.  The evening culminated with us getting Tony up on stage with us to sing Auld Lang Syne and, of course We Will Rock You!
The 2009 tour is now well under way and began a couple of weeks in Pitlochry.  This was one of the fastest selling gigs and we had two sell out evening performances and added a matinee on the Sunday.  The crowds were all great and it was good for us to be able to start off the tour with three gigs in the same venue.  The first night nerves were soon shaken off and we settled into some great performances that put us in good spirits for the rest of the tour.
The following weekend and we were clocking up the miles again.  After a corporate gig at Stirling Castle on the Wednesday night, we rendezvoused with the Chillibago and travelled through the night down to Porthcawl, in the South of Wales. Derek Smith, organizer of the Cwlwm Celtaidd festival was there to meet us in the morning and we were able to get a few hours sleep before the soundcheck.  The Pavillion in Porthcawl provided a lovely venue for us and a great debut in Wales.  The Welsh are obviously one of our Celtic cousins and we could see a kinship with the reaction we got from the crowd.  We must thank Derek and his team for looking after us, but unfortunately our visit had to be quite a short one.
After the gig finished on the Thursday night, we boarded the Chillibago again and travelled through the night to the next leg of our Scottish tour in Oban, quite a journey!  Arriving in a windy Oban in the morning, we had some time to relax and enjoy some of the local mussels before setting up at the Corran halls for that evening.  We’ve had some great times in Oban, including this same gig last year and a fantastic Hogmanay, and this trip was no exception. We’re having a great time involving the youth pipe bands as we travel around and support was provided this time by the Oban High School Pipe Band, who also returned to join us on stage later for Highland Cathedral and the Hills of Argyll.  Following them was guitar and fiddle duo Stevie Lawrence and Fiona Cuthill who put on a great performance, before Stevie does a quick change to join us on stage!
The following night we were in Dunoon and were joined at the Queens Hall by the Dunoon Grammar School Pipe Band.  Yet another fantastic night as we played to the packed out hall.
We’d like to thank everyone that has attended the tour so far and we’ve still got more gigs to come and we look forward to seeing you in Inverness, Arbroath, Galashiels, Dunfermline and Glasgow, see you there!

Chillipiper x

We’ve another new country under our belts as a couple of weeks ago we took Bagrock to the people of Kiev, in the Ukraine.  It was a rather cold but unique experience for us to be in this part of the world and strangely enough, we were there to play at another Burns Supper! This year we’ve played more Burns suppers outside Scotland than ever before, with Calcutta and now Kiev being the most exotic!

This particular dinner was being held on Valentines Day so it was cause for double celebrations.  The Kiev Lions Club, part of a fantastic organization that helps so many people in many ways worldwide, organized the event.  We are always pleased to be involved in great causes such as this.

Now in its 14th year, there was a great turnout for the dinner and lots of money was raised for the good causes.  We’re not sure if the people of Kiev have heard much of the bagpipes before but they certainly hadn’t heard anything like us and judging by the reaction it’s not something that they’re likely to forget in a hurry!

We were taken to Ukraine by two Scots now living in Kiev, Stuart and Robert who, along with Ozi, made sure we were well looked after in our time there and we had a great time at the party afterwards, especially the performance by Boney M and some well known Ukrainian acts!  The guys even made sure the football fans in the band got to see the ‘Glasgow Derby’ on the Sunday!

If you’re ever in Kiev, we recommend you check out one of their other business interests, Shooters bar, where we were wined and dined and also gave an impromptu late night performance after the Burns Night!

Our thanks to Stuart, Robert and Ozi, to Iryna our translator, and everyone that made the night such a success.

This week, we’re returning to a couple of gigs that we’ve enjoyed in the past.  Our first stop is Ljubljana, in Slovenia, where we are performing at an event for the Chivas Whisky group.  We first played at this event about 4 years ago and it was then that the band really became what it is now with drumkit and guitar being added to give us a bigger sound.  This obviously has fond memories for us and we’re looking forward to it, although last time it was very cold!  From there we travel to Luxembourg and the Zeltik festival, where we performed last year.  We got such a great response there last year that we cant wait to go back.

It promises to be yet another great week for us, we’ll see you here again soon!

Chillipiper x x

Germany to India!

Last Thursday we set off again on our travels, which were to take us halfway around the world.

Our first stop was in Frankfurt, from where Kevin had the unenviable task of driving some very tired Chilli’s for three hours to our destination, Freiburg, in the south west of Germany. A new friend of the Chilli’s, Petr Pandula, is working for us in this part of the world and had invited us here to take part in a showcase for performers and artists.  There were a great number of performers from all kinds of genres here, from bands such as ourselves to theatre acts, street performers and many more.  There were many good bands here but once again it was the Chilli’s who stole the show as the performance venue was packed out and we got a huge reaction for our performance.  Freiburg is close to the borders with France and Switzerland and as such brings in many agents and bookers from three different countries so it was a great buzz to get such a good reaction from them, especially as we were playing to another new audience who had never heard us.

Many thanks again to Petr and his team at Magnetic Music, thay always look after us well and we look forward to a great relationship!

The next day we had an early start as we began our long journey from Germany to India.  Kevin drove us back to Frankfurt, from where we flew to Dubai, then on to Calcutta (or Kolkata as it’s now known!)  One of the things we enjoy so much in the band is the fact that we get to travel so much and see so many different places and cultures, and Calcutta definitely ticks those boxes!  The British Council in Scotland and in India had worked so hard to get us there and looked after us so well while we were there.

On the Friday night we performed a concert in the exclusive Tollygunge golf club, where they had set up a fantastic stage in the grounds for an open-air concert.  India is another new territory for us but the British Council had obviously done a great job spreading the word as around 6,000 people filled the gardens and judging by the reaction every single one of them enjoyed the night!  Every audience is different and we get such a buzz out of getting such a great reaction from a new crowd, and new nationality of fan!

On the Saturday we visited the Calcutta School of music where we met some local young musicians.  We showed them what we do and the different instruments (obviously the bagpipes being the most exotic and interesting for them!) and had a great ‘jam session’ with them.  Yet another fantastic experience with such a mixture of ideas and cultures!

That night we attended and performed at a Burns Supper, that was a strange experience, sitting in Calcutta eating haggis sent over from Edinburgh and hearing the Selkirk Grace!

All of these events were part of the Kolkata Book Fair, which we were there to help promote, and also the Scotland-Kolkata Connection.  On the Sunday night, this all came to a close and it was our job to make sure it finished on a high note!  The closing ceremony in the past has been a low-key affair and the original plan was for the three pipers to play acoustically to an expected 200-300 people.  Word of our appearance had obviously spread though, and as the crowd kept coming into the book fair, it became clear that the plan had to change!  A PA system was quickly erected and the full band went on to perform to around 3,000 excited people!  This was perhaps one of the craziest gigs we’ve done but it was also so much fun!

We had an amazing experience in Calcutta and we’d like to thank everyone involved, everyone who came to our performances and made us feel so welcome.  The students we met at Calcutta school of music for sharing ideas.  Back home we need to give huge thanks to Pria Achall at the British Council, without whom we’d never have made it!  The directors of the British Council, in Scotland and India respectively, Roy Cross and Sujata Sen and all the British Council workers who looked after us so well while we were there.

We’re very confident that we’ve now made some new fans in another new country and are very hopeful that we can return again some day.  Until then it’s back to our humdrum lives, we’re just about to head over to Kiev in Ukraine this weekend, followed by a return to Slovenia (where a lot of the Chilli story first began some years ago!) and also to the fantastic Zeltik festival in Luxembourg……. tough work but someone has to do it!

Take care chillifans and we’ll see you soon!

Chillipiper x x
 

The Chilli train is rolling again as we get back to business for 2009! 

On the 23rd of January we headed up to Srathpeffer, near Inverness and The Pavilion, where we were playing a gig for a lovely lady named Dottie Grant.  Dottie runs a charity called HIV Mission Impossible, which helps kids in Romania suffering from HIV.  As well as helping them in Romania, she also brings them across to Scotland where they can enjoy many activities and experiences, which are not available to them at home.  Through speaking to Dottie herself and also many of the locals who attended, it was clear to us how passionate she is about this cause and made us very proud to be able to help out.  After the gig was announced, tickets went fast, possibly our fastest ever sell-out, and the lucky ones who made up the crowd gave us a fantastic response to welcome us back to the concert circuit in the New Year.

When it was all over, almost £10,000 had been raised for this great cause and we’d all inherited a new Nana! We’d like to thank everyone who attended and made this a great night, and also thank “Nana” Dottie and her daughters and colleagues at HIV Mission Impossible for inviting us and looking after us so well, we all felt very humbled to be able to donate some Chilli magic to this cause!

2009 is the Year of Homecoming and the 250th anniversary of the birth of Scotland’s National Bard, Robert Burns, and the 25th of January is celebrated around the world every year.  Coincidentally, Chilli Kevin also has his birthday on the 25th; he’s always ensured a good party! This year, we were taking part in Glasgow’s celebrations with a concert in George Square.  The Glasgow weather didn’t keep the crowds away as thousands filled the square for a night the Bard himself would’ve been proud of!

Afterwards a few of us attended a civic reception in the very impressive City Chambers where we were treated to the traditional whisky and haggis. We also want to mention Alive and Kicking, a group of ‘mature’ ladies and gentlemen from Glasgow who treated us to some songs from a bygone era, some of them had enough energy to put even our stage show to shame!

The following week brought another Burns Supper, this time down in London for a good friend of the Chilli’s Clark McGinn.  Clark is in much demand around the world as a dinner speaker especially for Burns suppers, where he is known as ‘Serious Burns’ and it was a great pleasure for us to see him in action again. A banker by trade, Clark certainly has many other strings to his bow! (check out www.seriousburns.com)

We were joined again for this gig by the Gary Blair ceilidh band and between us we had the whole place jumping with Scottishness, no mean feat when you consider that the majority of the guests were English bankers, (I do mean that they work in banking!) Staying in the hotel where we were performing meant we had an easy journey to our beds before an early start the next day.

The following morning was a quick dash back up to Edinburgh, then across to Glasgow to the Rangers FC football stadium, Ibrox.  Rangers were joining in the celebrations of Scotland and Robert Burns and drafted us in to help get the crowd in the spirit!  Earlier in the week we had been invited to their training grounds where we met some of the team, and got to watch them training.  It was great to see that team coach “Super” Ally McCoist has lost none of his passion and abilities, even up against all the youngsters in the first team squad he still showed off some silky skills!

He left it to the youngsters on the Saturday though and we got a great response from the 50,000 strong crowd.  We also had the privilege of watching the game from the corporate boxes, though we did have to dash off to play again at half time!  Thanks to everyone involved and especially Louisa who had the unenviable job of running around after us all day taking us where we needed to be, well done to her for making it all go smoothly!

Our next few gigs are a bit further afield, we’re just getting ready now to head over to Freiburg in Germany, where we always seem to get a good crowd and are well looked after.  From there we travel even further to India, where we are helping the British Council promote Scotland at an Arts Festival, this promises to be another unique experience for the Chillis and you know where to come to find out how it went!

Until then, take care and lots of Chillilove!

xx