• 5 months ago
Joe Gibbs reflects on 20 years of the Belladrum Festival.
Transcript
00:00Gosh I mean it's it's there have been so many it would be invidious to to pick any
00:05particular ones out but almost without exception every year the highlight has
00:13been that wonderful moment at the at the end of the event when audience the main
00:21headliner on the Saturday night have played and the audience all gathered the
00:27main stage and the M&S Legion Pipers form up on the stage and Kenny Smith and
00:37Torridon start up with a version of Caledonia or Loch Lomond or something
00:43like that and the hope the whole place is full of happy people who've had the
00:49most wonderful weekend and saying goodbye to each other for another year
00:55and I always find that no matter what how many marvelous acts that have been
01:00during the festival that that is the the key moment and kind of pulls it all
01:07together and and sums it up. No I think it was a case of fools walk in where
01:13angels fear to tread I had no idea where it was going to go. You know we just had
01:18a situation where we had as lovely gardens the Italian gardens which were
01:27going to rack and ruin and we we thought well we'll we'll restore them but we
01:33need to have a reason for doing that really and so having spent a lot of my I
01:41thought then misspent youth going to festivals but turns out actually perhaps
01:46it was a good thing although there were times when I wondered that that we
01:53should have a music festival here as there wasn't anything like that in the
01:56Highlands there wasn't very much else in Scotland like that at that time there
02:00was two in the park one or two others Wicker Man but but not very much and
02:07nothing in the Highlands so so we started and it you know it took a took a
02:14few years to get some momentum and to turn it into event that was sustainable
02:23as an event sustainable in the economic sense that it was wasn't just going to
02:28be because the first few years it was very expensive but anyway we got there I
02:35mean every every year we've made mistakes and every year you know
02:39everyone does because because things change you know you don't know what the
02:46life's going to throw at you from bird flu to Covid to airline we have one year
02:54you know when Lee Scratch Perry was playing when we had you know there'd
02:59been a terrorist instance and all the world's airlines ground to a halt to
03:05sometimes extreme weather you just don't know what it's going to throw at you
03:09can never be never really be completely prepared for that sort of thing and you
03:15just learn as you go along really but in terms of the event itself I don't think
03:22there's much I we always conceived it as a family as a family event and the
03:27reason the reason we did was because the first year I went to Glastonbury which
03:32was 1979 it was the first year that they that Arabella Churchill was running
03:40the the new kids area at Glastonbury and I remember talking to a lot of people
03:47there and they said well it's made a huge difference having the kids here
03:49because it's really taken any sting out of the the event in terms of antisocial
03:58behavior and that's something it's calmed it down a lot so we thought well
04:01that'd be lovely to have a to have a to have children involved and so right from
04:07the start it was it was an inclusive family festival right from the start it
04:11was tailored for the Highlands and for a Highland audience and always had a big
04:18emphasis on Highland and wider Scottish acts and cultural associations and
04:26anchored firmly in the community so I don't think I would change any of that
04:30and the the owners of the festival now they haven't changed any of that either
04:37they they've kept that tradition going and and it's lovely to see that I tell
04:41you I'm particularly looking forward to actually is teenage fan club I'm very
04:46glad to see on the on the lineup because we tried under my management we tried
04:56for years and years to get them and for one reason or another or another we
04:59failed and we never managed to make it work and so it's lovely to see them on
05:05the bill this year I think I think it's been quite a coup getting the sugar
05:11babes I don't know if you saw their Glastonbury set but that was a triumph
05:18they were one of the one of the standout features of this year's Glastonbury and
05:22I think they've done really well to book the sugar babes and I'm sure that as
05:27usual there'll be a wealth of of acts waiting to be discovered by by myself
05:32and everybody who we might not have heard of yet but but we'll we'll delight
05:39us with their their abilities