Celtic Connections 2020 and Angel Olsen's European Tour

Celtic Connections 2020 began yesterday. The festival, which has been running every January since 1994, will see around 2,000 musicians take part in 300 events in Glasgow venues, showcasing an outstanding array of traditional folk, celtic, roots, Americana, jazz, soul and world music. The festival welcomes an array of international artists, whilst also celebrating homegrown and up-and-coming talent. This year artists land in Glasgow from all over the world including Canada, Senegal, Burma, Finland, India, Cameroon, Lebanon, USA, France, Spain, Guinea, Australia, Portugal and Mali. We are always very busy here at ESP around Celtic Connections time as we are the main backline supplier for the festival.

Celtic Connections is running from the 16th January to the 2nd February.

To kick things off we will be supplying backline for BBC Scotland's run of shows in conjunction with the festival. Broadcasting from Cottiers in Glasgow, this special run of shows celebrates music from many of the artists performing at the festival. Including performances from the American, Seamus Eagan Project, legendary Canadian performer Frazey Ford, Scotland’s finest Lau, Birmingham based ambient-pop quartet Chartreuse and the critically acclaimed fusion trio Yorkston/Thorne/Khan.

 Scottish band Lau will be playing at Cottiers as part of BBC Scotland's coverage of the festival.

We will also be supplying backline to many of the other events taking place as part of the festival. On Friday our Roland RD700 SX is going to the Royal Concert Hall and we are delivering backline to the Old Fruitmarket for Colonel Mustard & The Dijon 5, a hire which includes our Yamaha Stage Custom Drum Kit, a Fender Twin Reverb, Fender Bassman 500 plus more. Saturday is another busy day at Celtic with backline going out to Béla Fleck & Abigail Washburn at the City Halls. Our Pioneer CDJ 900NXS and Pioneer DJM 850 are going to the Barrowlands for DJ Dolphin Boy and on the same day our Yamaha Maple Custom Absolute Drum Kit is going to the Barrolwands for the 80-piece Grit Orchestra who are performing compositions by the late Martyn Bennett. Finally we have 3 amps and our Nord Stage going to Drygate for French-Cameroonian singer Valérie Ekoumè. On Sunday we are delivering a substantial backline to the Royal Concert Hall for Lucy Rose. We are also delivering some of our new RAT Stands to the Strathclyde Suite in the same venue for Padruig Morrison. Later in the week we are delivering our C&C Playerdate 1 Kit,  Aguilar Tone Hammer 500, Aguilar GS410 Cab and Fender Twin 65 Reissue to the Mitchell Theatre for Amanda Platt and The Honeycutters on Tuesday. On Thursday another substantial backline is going to St. Luke’s for Frazey Ford. It includes 4 amplifiers, our Yamaha Maple Custom Drum Kit and our Nord Electro 5HP plus more. We will have a lot more deliveries for Celtic events over the coming weeks and will keep you updated on them all. In the meantime a full list of all the shows can be found over at celticconnections.com.

Angel Olsen's All Mirror's from the album of the same name.

Outwith Celtic Connections this month we have supplied our Gretsch Catalina Club Jazz Kit for Angel Olsen’s All Mirrors European Tour. The tour is in support of her new album All Mirrors which was released in October of last year. Following on from the critical acclaim of 2016’s My Woman the new album All Mirrors sees Olsen return with another enchanting album. On her vulnerable new album Olsen takes an introspective deep dive towards internal destinations and revelations. In the process of making this album, she found a new sound and voice, a blast of fury mixed with hard won self-acceptance. All Mirrors gets its claws into you on both micro and macro levels. Of course, there’s that singular vibrato, always so very close - seemingly simple, cooed phrases expand into massive ideas about the inability to love and universal loneliness. And then suddenly, huge string arrangements and bellowing synth swells emerge, propelling the apocalyptic tenor. Olsen herself says of the album: “In every way–from the making of it, to the words, to how I feel moving forward, this record is about owning up to your darkest side, finding the capacity for new love and trusting change even when you feel like a stranger.” Her live shows are often as enchanting as the records themselves and often have that aggressive edge that makes lives shows so captivating. The tour for the album begins in Lisbon on the 23rd January and ends in Glasgow’s legendary Barrowlands on the 14th February and our Drum Kit will be with her the whole way.

Forest of Black produced this video for the Scottish Ballet. You can see more of their work on their Vimeo page.

This Saturday we are providing our Gretsch Catalina Rock kit and guitar combo to Forest of Black. Forest of Black are are a small, focused team of Producers and Directors with collective experience making TV Commercials, Music Promos and Brand films in the UK and abroad, spanning 15 years. We have supplied backline to them on quite a few occasions and are always impressed with the work they do. Make sure to check them out over at their website and get in touch with them if you have a project idea.

If you are heading to any of the shows during Celtic Connections we hope you have a great time and if you would like to hire anything from us at all in the future don't hesitate to contact us at info@esp-musicrentals.co.uk.