Peebles High School Band

Conductor: Jenny McKie
St Ronan’s Future Band
Conductor: David Robb
Innerleithen Memorial Hall
Friday 22nd September

The young musicians of the Peebles High School band, 'SwingLoaded'  helped get the 7th Borders Festival of Brass off to a fantastic start on Friday 22 September.  'SwingLoaded' helped St. Ronan' Silver Band pack them into Innerleithen's Memorial Hall, playing a fantastic mix of traditional big band pieces.
 
Since its birth in 2004, 'SwingLoaded' has performed at many events and even took in a concert tour of Paris, where it performed at various locations around the city including a memorable concert given at the foot of the Eiffel Tower.  This, however, was something of a home-coming concert for High School music teacher and SwingLoaded leader, Jenny McKie, who is originally from Innerleithen.
 
SwingLoaded opened their programme with ‘Nous Blue' a brassy contemporary piece, moving quickly on to the more traditional big band numbers such as ‘American Patrol' and ‘April in Paris'.  Guitarist Pete Lewin then wowed the audience with his vocal talents in ‘Somewhere Beyond the Sea,' which also featured a dance sequence with the band's regular vocalist, Innerleithen's Lauren Knox.  The programme contained Glenn Miller favourites such as ‘In the Mood', ‘Little Brown Jug' and ‘Pennsylvania 6-5000.'  Lauren featured again in Cole Porter's ‘Night and Day' and 'The Lullaby of Broadway'.  Renditions of other big band classics such as ‘Just a Gigolo', ‘It Don't Mean a Thing, If it Ain't Got That Swing' and ‘Tuxedo Junction' confirmed the band's reputation as one of the Borders best young music groups.
 
Earlier in the evening, the first notes of the concert were provided by the St. Ronan's Future Band.  Conducted by David Robb, the Future Band played four pieces, opening with the appropriately named, ‘Swing is in the Air'.  This was followed by Elton John's ‘Crocodile Rock' and ‘This is our Band' which gave all of the young players a chance to shine.  The future Band closed their programme with a lively version of ‘La Cucaracha'.  Once again, the strength and quality shown by the group pointed to a strong outlook for music in Innerleithen, with much credit to David Robb, who is a talented teacher of brass.
 
The Future Band was followed on stage by St. Ronan's Silver Band, opening their programme with the powerful march, ‘Punchinello'.  The band was directed by Captain Alex Knox, who was conducting his first local concert with the band.  Captain Knox was appointed as the band's musical director in May and has been working tirelessly with the players to progress the excellent work of his predecessors.  A swing-style version of ‘Singing in the Rain' followed which featured effects from all sections of the band and conjured up images of Paddington Bear's version of the Gene Kelly classic!
 
The first soloist of the evening was Ian Aitchison, playing the ‘Lazy Trumpeter'.  The band's principal cornet player captured just the right amount of schmaltz to put this piece across perfectly.  The Band stayed with the swing theme for the next piece which was Salvationist Barry Gott's ‘Swingtime Religion' which contained infectious rhythms that fairly got the toes tapping!
 
A beautiful wee Irish piece called ‘Home Away from Home' followed.  This once again featured note-perfect solo lines from Ian Aitchison as well as a feature from the horn section.  Another, better know, Irish piece followed in the form of ‘Danny Boy' which featured the lower instruments in the band and built to an impressive finale.  The band's concluding piece was a good auld Scots sing-a-long by Alan Fernie, called ‘Jings!'  This music ensured audience participation with songs such as ‘ Belong to Glasgow', ‘My Ain Folk', ‘Campbeltown Loch,', ‘A Wee Doch' and ‘Doris' to name but a few.  It left the audience wanting more and this was offered in the form of the conductor's arrangement of ‘Hoots Mon!' a fun piece which was made famous by Lord Rockingham's XI in the late 50s.  It provided a fun end to an excellent programme by the town's band.
 
This event was the opening concert in the Borders Festival of Brass explained Band Chairman Christopher Wilson.  "We were very pleased with the huge audience that came along and would like, also, to thank Innerleithen Union Club, sponsors of the concert,", he added.

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