--------------------------------------------------------------------------- Battlefield Band - Classic Album Concert combining the ‘old & new boys’ at Celtic Connections 2009 Taking place in Glasgow every January, the Celtic Connections Festival is well established as Scotland's premier winter music festival & features artists from around the globe alongside the very best Scottish talent. Battlefield Band will be appearing at Celtic Connections on Saturday 24th Jan 2009 to play a 'classic album' concert: performing tracks from their 1980 'Home Is Where The Van Is' album. Produced by their long-time producer Robin Morton, this widely lauded & critically acclaimed recording set a benchmark and became a seminal album for many. The album pioneered many new directions which others have followed, and firmly established the integration of bagpipes with fiddle, keyboards, guitar and voice; mixing the old songs and tunes with new self-penned material & becoming a record that defined the sound of Scottish music for a long time. This concert sees the current line-up & the 1980 line up unite to perform tracks from that album, and also gives an opportunity for the 'old boys' & the 'new boys' to join forces and play together on some of the more recent Battlefield Band tunes & songs Donald Shaw, the artistic director of Celtic Connections & one of the founder members of the group Capercaillie, stated at the festival’s press conference that this particular album had been particularly influential on him & had a very important effect on the way that he thought about Scottish music. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- The combined ensemble for this event features: • Ged Foley (guitar, mandolin, northumbrian pipes, fiddle, vocals) • Mike Katz (highland & small bagpipes, bazouki, whistles, bass) • Brian MacNeill (fiddle, guitar, bouzouki, viola, mandolin, cittern, concertina, bass, vocals) • Duncan MacGillivray (highland bagpipes, guitar, whistles, harmonica) • Sean O'Donnell - (guitar, vocals) • Alasdair White (fiddle, whistles, bouzouki, highland bagpipes) • Alan Reid (piano, synthesiser, accordian & vocals) --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Celtic Connections Event Details: ' As classic albums arguably should, the Battlefield Band’s 1980 album Home Is Where the Van Is enraged purists aplenty on its release, but is now justly regarded as a landmark in the contemporary evolution of Scottish folk music. Its pioneering integration of non-traditional instruments like synthesiser, electric piano and harmonica with fiddle and bagpipes proved an enduring inspiration to countless other musicians – among them being current Battlefield Band fiddler, Alasdair White, who recalls hearing it in his father’s record collection as a child. It also marked longtime member Brian McNeill’s first notable emergence as a songwriter, in The Lads O’ the Fair, and was the group’s debut release in America. Tonight’s one-off show will feature the 1980 line-up alongside today’s, uniting Alan Reid, Brian McNeill, Duncan MacGillivray, Ged Foley, Mike Katz, Alasdair White and Sean O’Donnell, to perform material from both Home Is Where the Van Is and the band’s recent repertoire' Saturday 24th January 2009, 7.30pm, ABC, Glasgow, £15 www.battlefieldband.com find ‘Home Is Where The Van Is’ on CD at www.templerecords.co.uk