måndag 2 oktober 2017

Runrig tar farväl...

1984 på Cambridge Folk Festival dök skotska Runrig upp och skaffade sig en plats i mitt hjärta.
De spelade så att bastonerna nästan fick ett eget liv och fyllde varenda vrå på festivalområdet. Alla skivor på festivalen såldes slut på nolltid.

Efter en del strul med skivbolag och managers fick de några år senare sitt genombrott och de har varit världsberömda i Skottland, Danmark och Tyskland sedan dess, medan resten av världen inte brytt sig speciellt mycket... Helt obegripligt...!!



Runrig har i åratal varit ett ohyggligt bra band, där alla medlemmar bidragit med sitt speciella kunnande: Bröderna Calum och Rory Macdonald skrev låtarna och Rory spelade bas och sjöng fantastisk stämsång, medan Calum spelade diverse slagverk. Bruce Guthro (och tidigare Donnie Munro) stod för sång i världsklass. Malcolm Jones spelade gitarr och stod för arrangemangen. Iain Bayne är en de bästa trummisar jag hört och den senaste keyboardisten Brian Hurren har producerat gruppens sista skiva... En grupp i verklig bemärkelse...!

EFter 45 år så har de nu beslutat sig för att lägga ner nästa år och ger sig då ut på en avskeds-turné. Detta meddelande skickades ut förra veckan:

MAJOR RUNRIG ANNOUNCEMENT:
After 45 wonderful years in the music business, we have finally taken the very difficult and heart-wrenching decision to pull the curtain down on our long career, in 2018. We are now simply at that point in time where longevity and circumstance have to be balanced against what is right for the art and the muse.
We feel that the time for this decision is now upon us, and we embrace it with a sense of positivity but tinged with understandable sadness and reflection.
It was always inevitable that this day had to arrive, but its arrival does not make our situation any easier.
Taking the decision in 2015 to record the final studio album, The Story was a positive decision for us all. It was musically cathartic, creatively exciting, and it brought our recording career to a completed circle. It was very much a closing statement. We want to do the same for the live side of the band. To leave it unresolved would be a negative: to complete the circle with a series of farewell shows and celebrate our story together is the positive, meaningful, Runrig thing to do.
Will Runrig ever perform in some way again? – no one can say, but a door can be left open for any possible future, creative ventures. It would not be possible for us, as musicians, to stop writing, to stop recording and to stop the joy of live performance, but Runrig in its present form, as we’ve known it for 45 years, will come to an end.
Runrig the brand will of course continue and there are various exciting legacy projects in the pipeline and in the planning. We will leave information about all of that for another day, but for now, we are in a position to announce our series of farewell concerts for 2018. Entitled The Final Mile, the tour will take in shows in Germany, Denmark and England throughout the early summer, culminating in August with The Last Dance, the big final farewell concert in the heart of Scotland. The venue, City Park, Stirling, below the castle ramparts, is one that has newly been created for live performance events.




The world changes, we get older
What comes in love must leave in pain
And all the gifts we early treasure
The world takes away

The years we shared
Will find their beating in a heart somewhere
But the traces of our greatest days
Will fade away
- Calum & Rory Macdonald


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