Alasdair Roberts

Alasdair will be doing three solo gigs this month:

12th April: The Foundling Museum, LONDON

13th April: The Bower House, MAIDSTONE

26th April: The Mill on The Fleet, GATEHOUSE OF FLEET

Forthcoming live dates, including UK tour dates for A Wonder Working Stone CD/double LP have been added to the Live page of this website.

On 7th February at 8pm at The Old Hairdresser’s, Renfield Lane, Glasgow, there will be an album playback event: a chance to hear the new Drag City album A Wonder Working Stone by Alasdair Roberts & Friends in its entirety, along with live sets by some of the people who played on the record: Stevie Jones, Ben Reynolds, Rafe Fitzpatrick and Shane Connolly (and possibly more of the many individuals who appear on the disc).

On 19th February at 8pm, The Glad Cafe, Pollokshaws Road, Glasgow in association with Glasgow Film Festival is screening the documentary ‘In Search of Blind Joe Death – the Saga of John Fahey.’ Alasdair will play a short solo acoustic guitar set at the event.

Alasdair Roberts & Friends’ new CD/double LP will be released by Drag City Records on 22nd January 2013. It is entitled A Wonder Working Stone and features ten songs written by Alasdair himself, arranged for an international (Scottish, English, Irish and Welsh) cast of musicians! Some of these musicians are depicted alongside Alasdair on the front page of this website: Stevie Jones (upright bass), Ben Reynolds (electric guitar, harmonica), Rafe Fitzpatrick (fiddle, rap) and Shane Connolly (drums). Also appearing on the record are: Olivia Chaney, Tom Crossley, Donald Lindsay, Ross McCrae, Michael John McCarthy, Alison McGillivray, Richard Merchant and Howie Reeve.

Alasdair kicks off his 2013 activities with the following January solo dates:

12th January: AK Bell Library, Perth
22nd January: Leith Folk Club, Edinburgh

Please see the Live page of this website for more information.

2012

19th December: David McGuinness and Alasdair Roberts with The Crying Lion at The Glad Cafe, Pollokshaws Road, Glasgow

2013

12th January: Alasdair Roberts solo at AK Bell Library, Perth
22nd January: Alasdair Roberts solo at Leith Folk Club, Edinburgh

Please see the ‘Live’ page of this website for more information on these and other upcoming shows.

Two gigs coming up this weekend involving Alasdair.

Firstly, Mairi Morrison (voice), Stevie Jones (bass, piano) and Alasdair Roberts (guitar, voice) perform songs from their Gaelic/Scots album Urstan (Drag City Records) at Paisley Arts Centre as part of The Spree:

Oct 27th – Paisley Arts Centre
www.renfrewshire.gov.uk/onlinebooking
Box Office: 0141 887 1010

Then Alasdair will play with Stevie Jones (bass), Rafe Fitzpatrick (fiddle), Shane Connolly (drums) and Howie Reeve (vocals) at Un-Peeled in Preston, where we are delighted to be sharing a bill with Of Arrowe Hill and Martin Carthy:

Oct 28th – Preston The Continental
(full band set at Un-Peeled Festival)
www.newcontinental.net
Box Office: 01772 499 425

Oct 17th – Oxford: St Michael at the Northgate Church
(solo)

http://www.smng.org.uk/

Ticket link – http://www.wegottickets.com/event/186477
Facebook event: https://www.facebook.com/events/180642822072058/

Oct 18th – London Handel House
(solo and with special guest)

http://www.handelhouse.org/

Box Office: 020 7399 1953

Oct 21st – Manchester A Carefully Planned Festival
(solo)

http://acarefullyplannedfestival.wordpress.com/

Oct 27th – Paisley Arts Centre
(with Mairi Morrison and Stevie Jones)
www.renfrewshire.gov.uk/onlinebooking
Box Office: 0141 887 1010

Oct 28th – Preston The Continental
(full band set at John Peel Festival)
www.newcontinental.net
Box Office: 01772 499 425

Alasdair will be appearing solo at Partick Folk Club on 31st August.

Then he’ll be in collaboration with David McGuinness at Music Language Festival on 1st August and at Glasgow Print Studios on 6th August.

Please see the Live page of this site for further information.

Alasdair Roberts and Friends will play new and old songs at the following dates in August. They will be joined by the Gaelic singer Gillebride MacMillan and Mhairi Hall. Sokobauno Puppet Theatre and Alasdair Roberts will also perform their adaptation of the Scottish folk play ‘Galoshins.’ See the Live page of this site for more details

AUGUST

7th: Sheffield Greystones
8th: Sidmouth FolkWeek

Alasdair will perform solo in Edinburgh on 16th August. Details to follow.

Alasdair’s been collaborating with the pianist David McGuinness of Concerto Caledonia on a project involving David playing various pianos and keyboard instruments and Alasdair singing traditional Scots ballads. They will play this material as a duo at two dates in Glasgow in September:

SEPTEMBER
1st: Music Language Festival
6th: Glasgow Print Studio

A slew of new tour dates have been added to the Live page of this website.

Alasdair spent a week in Montreal, playing two concerts – one at Casa del Popolo (thanks to everybody there) and one under a motorway/freeway flyover beside a railway/railroad track (thanks to Lisa Gambletron for organising this). Other Scots visiting Montreal as part of the same project (which was generously funded by Creative Scotland) were: Tattie Toes (in duo form), Sarah Kenchington and The One Ensemble. Alasdair played alone for both gigs and also joined Sarah Kenchington for a song in both of her sets on one of her newest home-made instruments. There is a blog in development about the trip here. Check back there for updates!

Alasdair just enjoyed solo appearances at festivals in Gatehouse of Fleet and Leigh-on-Sea (where he was joined by Olivia Chaney on a couple of songs) – many thanks to the people of those places who facilitated these performances. The next live appearance is at Schlachtfest Sigmaringen in Germany on 21st July. Alasdair won’t be playing a musical gig – he’ll be collaborating with Shane Connolly of Sokobauno Puppet Theatre again on their co-production of the Scottish folk play ‘Galoshins’ which originally toured in October 2011. Of course, he’ll have his guitar with him in Germany so there’s bound to be a song or two also at some point.

It won’t be his usual beautiful guitar hand-made in Glasgow in the early seventies by Les Brown but rather his still eminently playable K Yairi, as the Les guitar was damaged (but not irreparably) on a budget airline flight between Belfast and Glasgow.