Hello Steemians,
on Friday we were on our last concert of the Scottish folk rock band Runrig. They complete their career on the stages with this last Farewell tour which will end with the last concert in August 2018 in Stirling (Scotland). After 45 years on the stages of this world, making people dance and happy they will go on pension.
"The hardest things in life to say are the first Hello and the last Goodbye"
Bruce Guthro (singer)
I remember back in 2005 when we traveled with the family through Scotland by car, sleeping in a tent. We visited a shop in a town and the shop-owner played a song of Runrig on the stereo. I asked my father if we can buy a CD of this band and so he did. After the vacation my father created a video with the photos of the trip and in the background he integrated songs of Runrig. Watching this video and listening to the music became my fathers tradition for every starting vacation. Since 2005 we went on 3 concerts in Germany and my father even convinced my mother to join him to the festival in Scotland where they played. It was an easy decision when my father asked us to join him for the last concert on their last tour. I'm sorry I don't have better pictures from the near but we sat in the background and that was perfect to enjoy and feel it:
So much for the background, what this band means for us. If you want an impression of the concert, check out this video a fan filmed during the last two songs "Loch Lomond and "Hearts of olden Glory".
Runrig was founded in 1973 and were called Run Rig Dance Band first. Two bandmembers kept stuff going from the very beginning. The brothers Rory MacDonald (bass and background vocals) and Calum MacDonald (percussion) wrote and played songs for Runrig for 45 years, sang in English and in Gaelic. The singer Donnie Munro left the band 1997 and was replaced by Canadian singer and guitarist Bruce Guthro. They have a huge fanbase of course in Scotland but also in Germany where the fans call themself „Riggies“.
Their last concert announced for Stirling (25.000 tickets) was sold out in 4 minutes!
They play very emotional rock songs and ballads. A few times during the concert we had tears in our eyes. Maybe it was the soulful music with the heartwarming lyrics. Maybe it was the show with awesome videos in the background. Or maybe it was the fact they play this music for 45 years now, with fans who got old together with the band members. I saw people holding up the Scots flag high the whole concert and everybody danced from the age of 18 to 70.
Here's a song from their latest and last album The Story from 2016 - we will miss them.
"The hardest things in life to say are the first Hello and the last Goodbye"
Thank you for reading :)
