The band were invited to be the star attraction on the closing evening of the four day festival. French stars closed the other evenings. The idea of organiser Bernard Wagner, was to produce a "Highland Legend" son et lumiere with a Scottish Highland mountain as the centrepiece, topped and tailed by a lone piper with ghosts, nymphs and ghouls dancing and singing before the entry of the pipes and drums.
All went well and the Pipes & Drums played to time as fireworks were lit between tunes. The march off to Scotland the Brave and Rowan Tree was well received and those watching ran to the huge marquee to secure a good position for our "Cabaret" performance. Virginia (D/M) marched the band through the entire length of the Marguee (2000 people) and onto the dance floor, still playing Scotland the Brave.
Cock o' the North/Pibroch of Donald Dhu came next and the band peeled off in ranks onto the stage behind to assemble in a double layered crescent. All went to plan and the show really got under way. Our band comprised members of Ringwood Pipe Band with guest players from Surrey, Epping Forest, Sutherland & Tulloch Ard (Formerly Hampshire Fire & Rescue) pipe bands. This was owing to the fact that it was a Monday to Wednesday trip on the back of a week in Scotland.
The whole band gelled well - rehearsal had been chanters with Olivia McLennan in the morning to clear the bugs and pipes and formations with P/M Bob Pearson and D/M Virginia McLennan in the afternoon.
We also had John Scott (MacBeth in this years Tattoo) singing unaccompanied "Scots Wha Hae" and "The Balled of Glencoe" and Donna Walsh was our Highland Dancer. Each grouping also did their own 2 minute spot and a drum salute completed the ingredients.
A 50 minute show retained the interest of the audience and much clapping and cheering took place. The Black Bear march off drew enormous applause for the show and a big cheer went up as singer John and dancer Donna took a final bow.
During the show the biggest roar was for the drum salute. Congrats to David, Ron, Michael, Steve, Jenny and Nick for a super salute - the best Ringwood Drumming in memory.
So a great night and we were well pleased with the outcome. The organisers were also pleased and made a point of saying that we were the only performers to hold the audience to the end and it was almost midnight when we finished.
Our thanks to Bernard, Christian, Chris and Bernard (who took us on a site-seeing trip of Metz) for making us feel very special throughout and for the wonderful welcome given to our multi-national band.
(Scots, English, Welsh, Irish and Zimbabwean!)
Our coach was supplied by Tourist Coaches of Salisbury and Keith the driver was excellent as usual - super customer care. he is now christened "Skin of your teeth Keith" as each day we just beat the tachometer by a minute or so!
Final thanks to all those who joined us and help make the trip a special one for all.
Ian McLennan
