During the week of the World Pipe Band Championships, there is a parallel event called Piping Live. There is music being played at venues around the city, but the main action is in George Square – the city’s main public plaza.
The band was invited to play there this year and they went on Wednesday morning, ahead of Manawatu from New Zealand and LA Scots from the US.
The crowd was five or six deep around the edges of the performance square and the band’s performance was well-received.
Band members have been prowling the city by day and, at night, those old enough to get in have been mixing with the world’s piping community at the Lord Todd Bar on the University of Strathclyde campus. The pub is the unofficial hub of the piping world for one week each year.
The band is now into intense practices, fine-tuning the sound for Saturday. Weather has actually been very good, with high, broken clouds and temperatures nearing 20 C – luxury around here.
Many in the band went to see Field Marshall Montgomery perform in concert Wednesday night, with the event MC’d by Burlington’s own Bob Worrall. The organizational side of the event was a bit of a trainwreck, but the calibre of the music was unbelieveable. FMM is widely considered the best pipe band on the planet, though Canada’s Simon Fraser University band is also right up there.
