Tag Archives: The MacGregors

Church, Music, Pictures

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Richard and Sheila Concert night

Drat, my cunning ploy to minimise the number of pictures of me seems to have failed – an e-mail turned up from The MacGregors this morning with some pictures they’d taken after their concert last month. Not only do I turn up in the background of a picture of Ian and Tom Fox, but they managed to get one of me and Sheila MacGregor too! Beth features in the third picture, as she, Sue and Carolyn tidy up in the kitchen.

I’ve uploaded the three pictures to my Flickr account (either that or somebody else was going to…) and you can also find them on the end of our MacGregors Concert Set too.

Church, Music

The MacGregors

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The MacGregors

So after all the organising and planning it’s all done – the MacGregors played a concert for us in the Parish Centre tonight, and tomorrow they head off for their last date in the UK where they will be playing as part of the next Vertigo event.

Age wise we had pretty well the usual St James’ eight-to-eighty – well actually six to beyond eighty as Becky’s youngest daughter came along too. We even had two new people who had seen the poster walking past the Church at the weekend and decided to come along. Food wise we had a great bring-and-share supper with plenty of food for everybody – as usual a slightly eclectic selection but I think everybody was well fed.

Since both the MacGregor girls had managed to pick up one of the current colds that are doing the rounds they played two sets, one after main course, and the other once we had got on to coffee taking a break in between. Experience wise the concert was a bit different from what you would have heard if you’d listened to their album as this was very much an acoustic set with only the two of them, and without the backing of the full band – however at the core all of the arrangements on the CD are still based around the harmonies of the two girls voices which of course you still got in the live performance.

What we also got to hear were a load of new songs that have been written since the album was released, plus something you don’t hear on the album – a flashback to what they first played together Toss the Feathers a traditional Irish folk tune and one of my favourites of the Corrs recordings. What was interesting was that when I said that I’d first heard it on the first Corrs album the girls said that they had heard it on the same album and had transcribed the song by ear from the recording to do their own version. Check out the Corrs version here if you want to compare – I thought it was pretty impressive.

All in all it was a great evening, and everybody seemed to thoroughly enjoy themselves. Hopefully if they’re ever passing this way again we’ll be able to get them along to play for a bigger audience as I know there are quite a few people who wanted to come but were unable to due to clashing commitments. Having said that, those that missed out still get a chance as they donated five copies of their CD to the Church so we can sell those on or maybe raffle them at our next musical event.

I took a few pictures during the concert which as always are in our photo gallery. I also used the video recording on the camera (and remembered the tripod too) so below is all the sequences edited together – Toss the Feathers is on the end.

Incidentally on a technical note, the above is my first attempt at using the rather controversial new version of iMovie – after some teething troubles (I had to reinstall the application from the DVD before it would start properly) it was relatively straightforward. The interface is totally redesigned but was pretty good once I’d got used to it – the clip skimming being particularly cool. The other cool thing is the pretty straightforward YouTube export – the above clip was sent straight from the application in much the same way as I can now send pictures from iPhoto to Flickr.

Church, Music

The MacGregors come to Finchampstead

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cdcover-dark-beauty.jpg

Back in May, Ian MacDonald posted about a Canadian Band called the MacGregors who were coming to the UK looking for opportunities to play at Churches and Youth Events. They already had bookings around the London area, and were going to be finishing off around Oxford, so trying to arrange something for them in the Wokingham area seemed like a good idea. We thought about maybe doing something at St James at that point, but with a big Youth Group event a couple of weeks before, and multiple conservation fund raising events, not forgetting the Harvest Supper, all falling around the same time, there didn’t really seem to be a slot. I tried to help by putting them in contact with people around the Wokingham area, and again nothing seemed to work.

Since having visitors from Canada seems to be something we do quite regularly (can’t quite think why that is 😀 ), I’d also been offering suggestions about the best touristy things they could do whilst they were in the area, it was a bit disappointing when neither the Wokingham gig, nor something at Finchampstead seemed to come together. However it also posed a problem for the band as they still had a gap in their schedule, so in a nice offer they said that if we in Finchampstead could provide them with some accommodation, giving them a chance to go do the touristy stuff like Windsor and Stonehenge, and by way of a thank you they’d play us a concert for whoever wanted to come along and listen. We’re currently trying to find them all beds for the week that aren’t too scattered around the village (any other offers of beds most welcome too).

So, as a result, we have the MacGregors playing a concert in the Parish Centre at St James on the evening of Friday 12th October, at 7:30pm. We’re totally unsure what support we’ll get from the congregation, as the Harvest Supper is the weekend before, and there is another big conservation event the week after! Tickets will be £7, plus a contribution of pudding or main course for a bring-and-share supper, and any profit that we make will go into the conservation fund (less than £100,000 to go!). So if you’re not doing anything on the night of 12th October it would be great to see you at the Parish Centre, although they have been really nice about the prospect of not having many people, it would be great if we could get a good number along to support them. Also if anyone knows of someone with a a six input powered amp with speakers and two mics with boom stands I need to get hold of those for the night too.

Finally, if you want to hear what they sound like before you decide, you can find their album on iTunes. The following also sums up what they have been up to in Canada:

From playing at huge shows, like the Bell Centre (13,000 people), to playing at coffee houses, The MacGregors are drawing listeners from across Canada and the world. Combining ear-catching harmonies with their mature and creative songwriting and acoustic and electric instrumentation, they create a sensation when they play. Mixed in with their live performances has been radio airplay on local and national stations. Although they are young and entering full swing into the music industry, they already have had tremendous success. They completed their first EP “Rain” when they were 12 and 13. Two songs off of that EP received recognition in the well-respected International Songwriting Competition 2003. Rachel won first place in the teen category and Alisha received an honorable mention. Rachel attended Berklee College of music on a full scholarship to their summer program. They won favorite New Artist in the Okanagan Musician Awards 2004. Alisha 15, and Rachel 17, recently finished their first full length CD, Dark Beauty. Again this year, both Alisha and Rachel are winners in the 2005 International Songwriting Competition. This time Alisha took first place and Rachel took 3rd. Alisha will be travelling to Boston to Berklee’s summer program on a full scholarship. They competed against teens from around the world and the competition had 15,000 entrants in total (www.songwritingcompetition). Rachel’s song Dark Beauty is also a finalist in the John Lennon Songwriting Competition (www.jlsc.com) competing against songwriters of all ages. Most recently, The MacGregors won an all expense paid tour through Music BC called “Get Outta town Tour”.

Update: Okay we’ve got places for them to stay – indeed enough that they could change host part way through the week if they wanted. We’ve also got someone who has volunteered an amp too. Ticket sales are going okay – as expected lower thanks to the Harvest Supper but a real mix of the congregation – quite literally eight to eighty! Still room if anybody else wants to come along though.