Festival Season 2007 started with a bang as we returned to the wonderful Knockengorroch World Ceilidh in the hills of Galloway. This is festival-going in its rawest & most basic form & we expect wet & cold weather. So the almost wall to wall sunshine we experienced on Sunday was a welcome bonus after the wind, rain & hail we endured for the first 2 days.

As always, we drank the fraoch and the kelpie as if our lives depended upon it. We danced in the mud like we would never dance again and we consumed enough laughing gas to keep a moderate sized maternity ward supplied for months.

The Stoats porridge stall made a welcome return and the music was top drawer, causing the festival to completely sell out by the Saturday lunchtime. Mr Scruff hit the spot just perfectly on Friday night, although I’m afraid I got there too late to enjoy Zion Train on Saturday as the tent was already full to bursting point. I’m sure there will be other opportunities to see them later in the summer. Apart from those acts the following pictures give a full account of pretty much everything else I saw onstage over the weekend.

One hates to level criticism at such a wonderful event as this but they really do need to sort out the gate policy. It simply isn’t acceptable to make people queue for 3 hours only to tell them they would have to leave the site, sleep in their cars and return the following morning. But that small moan aside Knockengorroch remains a truly special event and the perfect way to kick off the summer. There’s a good few festival weekends to enjoy between now & September but I’m already looking forward to returning for The Hairth. Enjoy the photos.