Belladrum Festival 27/07/2023 (THURSDAY)

I drove to Paul’s house in the morning and the roads were clear until I reached Beauly, where I met a lot of congestion near the turning to his house. I didn’t realise how bad it was until I went for my shuttle bus at 12pm and stood looking at the same row of traffic for at least twenty minutes before any sign of movement. I messaged Paul over an hour later to inform him the bus came half an hour late and I still hadn’t passed his house, which he couldn’t believe. It was an agonising journey as I knew I was missing out on the festivities and I didn’t bring any entertainment with me because I didn’t think it would take so long to get there. I wished I’d brought earphones to help block out the bus full of drunk passengers, though they were entertaining for a short while. The bus driver was also funny, teasing us that he needed to stop for a break. People were giving him sweets to keep him going. They were also exiting the bus for a smoke and were getting back on easily, as we hadn’t moved an inch. A few girls were bursting to go to the toilet and had to hide in bushes and behind trees. I wasn’t that desperate. We kept stopping and starting for ages. It took over three hours to reach the festival from Beauly, which is only three and a half miles away. I was checking the map on my phone and saw we were only half way there after sitting on the bus for two hours, so was trying to calculate what time we’d arrive and worried it would be like this the next two days as well. I looked behind us when we were stuck on a bend and saw it was mostly campervans in the queue, which meant they would be staying at least overnight. People were saying it would have been better if they let campers in the night before but I know they did because my cousin Julie went on Wednesday night. When we were eventually turning into the site an Inverness bus went first and the bus driver turned to us and said “If it makes you feel any better, that bus left Inverness at 11am!” I know a lot of people got fed up waiting and turned around to go back home, missing out on the acts they wanted to see.

The first band I saw was Scooty & The Skyhooks. I wanted to get my bearings first of all and get something to eat after being on a bus for such a horrible length of time. It felt like I was miles away from Beauly, down near Glasgow somewhere. They were performing at the Garden Stage, which used to be the main stage. I couldn’t picture how that could be the case, as the area looked far too small. It’s much more sensible having the main stage (Hot House) where it is now, away from everything else. The main stage is now visible from the campsite I walked through to get in, which means some people could view the show from their tent. There’s lots of space for thousands of people to gather and I thought it looked really good. I liked that it is the first thing you see as you are driving into the festival, as it gets you really excited for who you are going to see at it. Everyone was talking about the ABBA act who were coming on at the very end of the night as they were brilliant the previous year but I would have been too tired to stay for that and my last bus back to Beauly was at 12am. Scooty & The Skyhooks were very good but most, if not all, of their songs seemed to be covers of older songs. I understand the appeal, as people wouldn’t need to know the band to sing along and get into the music but I prefer original songs. I really only remember them doing ‘Build Me Up Buttercup’ because I used to sing that around the house all of the time. I took a couple of photos and headed over to the bar but they had already run out of lager. The girls were pouring as much out as they could but were getting nowhere. It took ages to get served, which was annoying because I missed a couple of the songs over people talking. I wasn’t fully aware of the situation at first, so didn’t appreciate getting blanked. When I was finally acknowledged, I ordered an IPA instead. The girl said “Good choice!” since they were having difficulty with the lager. I enjoyed the rest of the songs. The lead singer has a great voice and was good at getting people to dance along. I think I saw them perform in Inverness a few years ago and I spent a while trying to remember if it was them or somebody else.

I saw Dead Pony next, at the same stage. I was curious about them as I heard they are coming to Inverness soon. I was looking up local music events since I can’t travel as often as I did last year and they popped up, so I listened to their songs on Spotify and liked them. I didn’t really remember any of them, though. This set was televised and I made it on to BBC iPlayer since I was at the barrier, unfortunately. I was hoping to make it through the festival undetected. I made sure to wear a baseball cap which concealed my face the next couple of days. I wanted to listen to the bands in peace without a camera bobbing up and down in front of me. Some people couldn’t get enough of the attention, though. I’m the total opposite and being on my own didn’t help as I looked like a complete loner. The band announced they are from Glasgow and I think they mentioned their upcoming gig at The Tooth & Claw. I was trying to jot down notes on my phone for my blog but it would have looked rude, so I attempted to cram everything they said into my brain instead. The lead singer is Anna Shields and she has a strong and distinctive voice. She captivated the crowd and came across as very confident on stage. The guitarist played the beginning of ‘Sweet Child Of Mine’ as a joke before leading into one of their songs, which got a laugh. They were very well received and I know they have a rapidly growing fan base. I always wonder if any of these smaller bands are going to become huge one day and I’ll get to say “I was there at the beginning!” Sometimes it just happens overnight. It’s hard to define their music as a single genre but Google describes them as Alternative Rock or “Garage-Grunge”, which is new to me. They definitely did an amazing job getting the festival livened up early in the evening and I felt a lot more energised after their performance. Their songs were some of the more memorable of new bands I heard, too. My favourite of theirs was probably ‘Bullet Farm’ as the lyrics were interesting and clever. It might have been the song they opened with but I’m not sure. I need to watch their set back.

I had a small gap between Dead Pony and Skerryvore to make it to the main stage. I expected Skerryvore to be like Skipinnish as they’re both traditional Scottish bands starting with the letter “S”. They had their similarities but weren’t as alike as I thought they would be. It was probably an unfair assumption. Google tells me the band was founded by Gillespie brothers Daniel and Martin, who are still core members of the band. I’m certain they said Alec Dalglish, the lead singer, writes the majority of the songs. They did ‘Live Forever’, which I had never heard before but remembered well by the time they had finished. They encouraged us to sing along to the “Forever” parts in the chorus, which was simple enough for people to do. I liked it and look forward to watching back their performance, too. I sent my dad a picture of the band when they came on stage and he was put off by the fact they had bagpipes but they weren’t always prominent. There were some bagpipe-heavy songs but they didn’t feel out of place between the ones without any. I don’t mind bagpipes as much as some people, anyway. They remind me of my childhood for some reason, when I was at special events – before I realised they’re only primarily heard in Scotland. I did hear some when I went to Australia, strangely. They follow me. Some of the instruments I struggled to even recognise because there was so much going on. Impressively, there were no awkward moments on stage like long silences between songs or stopping to tune instruments. Live performances can be unpredictable and there were minor issues during other acts. I always find it fascinating to see what happens and how they go about solving these problems but maybe that’s just me. They did their new song ‘Eye Of The Storm’, which sounded like ‘Into The Unknown’ from ‘Frozen 2’ to me for a second. They said their new album reached number one in Scotland and it was their first number one, so they were very excited and grateful. They said they last performed here at the Grassroots stage a number of years ago and they are happy to be back. I’m surprised they don’t get asked to come every year.

I was excited to see Sam Ryder, as he is well known after doing so well on the ‘Eurovision Song Contest’ and enabling the UK to host the show for the first time in many years. He has an incredible voice, which is magical to listen to. I only knew two or three of his songs, so was interested to see what else he would do. He was supposed to appear last year but cancelled due to illness, promising to come this year instead. He wore sunglasses for the first couple of songs but whipped them off, revealing a giant black eye. He said he had eye surgery the night before but still came even though his head was fuzzy because he couldn’t miss the festival for a second time. He realised he was going to be seen on TV looking like that but shrugged it off and even leaned in towards the camera and pointed at his eye mid-song. I loved hearing ‘Mountain’ but enjoyed ‘SPACE MAN’ more, even though it reminds me a bit too much of ‘Rocket Man’ by Elton John and ‘Starman’ by David Bowie. I think I actually enjoyed his covers more than his original songs, if I’m honest. He did ‘You Got The Love’, which I thought was a Florence + The Machine song but is apparently by Candi Station. Is it the same song? I need to check when I find a moment. He followed it with ‘We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together’ by Taylor Swift and ‘Misery Business’ by Paramore, which is perfect because they are touring together next year. His voice sounded so good on all of those, even though you wouldn’t necessarily imagine him singing them out of all the songs in the world to choose from. He especially blew me away with the Paramore cover. He talked about the success of his new song, ‘Fought & Lost’. I thought it sounded like a Queen song, which is funny because I read all about it afterwards and it was intentional and even features a guitar solo from Brian May. He seems as nice as everybody says he is and he even surprised Sigrid later on in the night by watching her perform from the side of the stage. She was surprised and said she felt intimidated because one of the best singers in the world was watching her.

Sigrid was incredible, too. I knew all of the songs she did except one or two, which was good enough for me. She has a gorgeous voice and lots of fans were singing along with her and raving about her the rest of the weekend. Someone asked a little girl on one of my buses back to Beauly who her favourite act of the weekend was and she didn’t hesitate to say Sigrid. It was her first time headlining a show outside of the EU, she told us. I couldn’t place where she was from by her accent, as she was only talking in short bursts. I thought maybe she was Irish at first but read that she is from Norway. Those accents don’t even sound similar, so it shows how distorted people can sound over a microphone. She wowed us for her entire set and it never got boring or felt like it dragged. She performed a slow song on the keyboard I didn’t know and was impressed with everyone for shining their phone torches and waving them in the air. In the middle of the song she looked up and smiled before stating, “I love the lights!” She brought out a Scottish flag and paraded around with it for a bit before her final song ‘Strangers’, where she brought out a member of Skerryvore to perform the bagpipes alongside her. I wondered whether they had practiced it at all backstage, as it must have been a lot of fun. It’s nice when they do something to make the show unique and perform their songs a little differently to how they usually do them. She said it was one of her favourite live moments of all time. I was in a good mood at the end, even though it was such a tiring day and I felt really drained when I first hopped off the bus.

Overall, it was a fantastic first day of the festival. I knew the weather was set to improve, so I was feeling optimistic. I didn’t know who to ask about the buses, so I headed back to the drop-off point. I found them there but there were no headings on the buses to indicate which was which. I had to ask three or four people to get an answer I felt satisfied with. They said the Beauly bus wasn’t leaving until 12am and the Inverness buses were going first. I thought it was better organised the following nights, where they sent the buses off as soon as they were filled – so we didn’t always have to wait until 12am. There were rows of buses, so plenty for everyone. Paul stays up late, so I managed to catch him each night to gush about my favourite musicians. Since I wasn’t in a rush today, I took time to explore the grounds and find out where everything was. I never found water taps to refill the bottle I took with me, though I heard people talking about them. I saw a girl push behind a wall to get to them (I assume) but it didn’t look like you were supposed to do that. I didn’t get it. It seemed like everywhere you looked something interesting was happening, which was a big contrast to the last two festivals I went to. There was a man dressed as Elton John driving around on a small mobile piano. He was singing ‘Tiny Dancer’ when I passed him and took a photo. There was a good range of food vans, a place to get your hair/glitter makeup done, horses, wrestlers, acrobats etc. People were dressed up as all sorts of cartoon characters because of this year’s theme but most people were in typical festival clothes. I saw a girl chase a £20 note across the ground, only to find a man was reeling it in on a string as a joke. I struggled to sleep after all that and knowing I had more exciting things to experience on Friday and Saturday. I already know I would love to go to the festival again, depending on the line-up of course.