I had been pondering the idea of a concert of Secret Coast Songwriters for a while and had imagined it being in Tighnabruach and the logisitics were holding me back a little.
Then the idea of taking the Showcase to the people, rather than the other way around, came to me and unlocked the whole puzzle, and it all fell into place very quickly.
The event would serve a number of purposes - showcase for the wonderful songs; a chance for our songwriters to push themselves out of their comfort zone and play to a live audience; a great chance to continue to build our community across the 3 weekends; a marketing opportunity for the weekends; and a chance to raise funds for Nordoff-Robbins and their wonderful work in music therapy.
I had imagined we get 8 or 10 of our songwriters wishing to get involved, but was amazed that we quickly had 17 of our songwriters signed up - pretty much everyone who had been to Masterclasses 1 to 3.
We found the perfect venue in The Glad Cafe in the southside of Glasgow and they had Friday 1st September available. We were all set.
Our friends at IntoCreative did a wonderful job in refreshing our brand images for the event and created a wonderful poster - an homage to Woodstock!
James, Bobby and Grahame were all keen to be involved. And to top it all off, the wonderful Blythe Duff agreed to compere the night!
At James' suggestion we booked 3 rehearsal rooms at the famous Berkeley 2 rehearsal rooms (Beyonce, Coldplay!) for the afternoon to blow the cobwebs off - and then we were ready.
Some of our songwriters are seasoned performers, for some this was their first time singing or playing in front of an audience. With the cafe full of friends and family, they were never going to have a more supportive crowd to perform in front of.
The songs were all filmed by the team from IntoCreative and are available on our YouTube channel.Like this wonderful song from Gerry.
Our featured songwriters on the night were:
Lynn Whittaker
Gerry McBride
Tom Forrest
Ray Scullion
Stuart Gillies
Bobby Motherwell (aka Sulidae)
Liz Kentish
Dougie Smith
Alison Craig
Peter Hall
Linda Scott
Jamie Campbell (Dignity Row)
Steven & Graeme (from Only When I Glow)
Sandrine Certenais
Ross MacDonald
Steven McDonald
Alan McGinlay
The whole evening finished with the traditional "Live Aid" style chaotic finale, with a lively rendition of "Young at Hear" which was dedicated to Rab Noakes, a Scottish Music Legend and a Secret Coast Songwriter who we lost last year.
With it being such a successful event, we have now decided to make it an annual event. Roll-on 2024!