Peat & Diesel Documentary

[Lianachan]

Last night, on BBC Alba, there was an excellent show about everybody's favourite Stornoway band. It followed them on tour in 2022, with gigs all over Scotland, England and Ireland, ending with them playing twice at Glastonbury that year.

Obviously the music is great, and it's pretty funny as the band are still the same Stornoway coves they've always been and who are very like many of my friends from growing up on the western Isles.

But! It's also pretty poignant, as the lads struggle to write new material. They don't have time, they are musicians who also have day jobs, and their songs are all about a life they no longer live due to their success and increasing fame.

This is part 2 of 3, and if you can get iplayer where you are I recommend you give it an hour of your time.

link
Synopsis:
After a stunning arrival on the Scottish music scene in 2018, the lyrics and antics of Peat & Diesel became the stuff of legend. The story began when three Stornoway ‘Coves’ (Innes, Uilly and Boydie) met up in the house to have the craic on a Saturday night playing music with just the dog and the cat watching.

This was a local band singing about life in their own corner of Scotland that found resonance way beyond the Western Isles. Fans from Ness to Newcastle belted out their songs in pubs and at festivals while their social media following exploded. Then the pandemic came.

While a tour zig-zagging the UK and Ireland pulls in the fans, the toll of being constantly on the road brings its challenges as the Peat & Diesel boys, in the words of one their songs find themselves “trying to find a way to make a living”.

In Ireland they need to move to bigger venues as they are greeted with enthusiastic audiences in Belfast, Dublin, Galway and Cork. In England it becomes evident that fans are travelling far and wide to hear the band and, despite not understanding much of the Gaelic lyrics that weave through their songs, a sell-out crowd in Birmingham sing their hearts out.

[Heid the Ba]

I'll hunt this down. They deserve all the success they get.

[Lianachan]

Last part is on BBC Alba RIGHT NOW with the lads playing in Germany.