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Celtic Performers

Prydein

www.prydein.com/prydein.html

prydeinIn 1994 a group of college friends at the University of Vermont found themselves at a musical dead end. Everywhere they went, everything they played had been done before them and it was driving them crazy. Hoping to fend off the Vermont trend of becoming another Jam Band they started a program at the University for like-minded folks called "the Experimental Music Program" yet even this provided lack-luster results and strange arrangements of Dueling Banjos played on marimbas by guys in overalls.

Then one day, a bagpiper came into their midst. What strange, beastly creation was this? There was no place to plug in an amp... the piper tuned it with... electrical tape? Could this have been what they had been searching for all these years? It was.

Aron Garceau grew up listening to the music of Stevie Ray Vaughan and Led Zeppelin. Often experiencing delusions of grandeur, he actually thought that maybe, just maybe, Led Zeppelin would re-unite and he would get to see them live. He imagined that halfway through the show, some freak accident would claim the left hand of Jimmy Page, forcing Robert Plant to turn to the audience holding up Jimmy's impotent guitar and plead "please, is there anybody out there who knows how to play 'Stairway to Heaven'?" Obviously, this scenario never happened.

Bring in Iain Mac Harg. The son of a world-renowned Bagpipe builder, Iain grew up listening to the music of the Battlefield Band and the Tannahill Weavers. Often experiencing delusions of grandeur, Iain actually thought that maybe, just maybe, the Tannies would play a show in his hometown and half-way through the show, some freak accident would claim the left hand of Gordon Duncan, forcing Roy Gullane to turn to the audience holding up Gordon's flaccid bagpipe and plead "please, is there anybody out there who knows how to play 'Maggies Pancakes' and 'Dancing Feet'?"

It was like Chocolate and Peanut Butter, although neither one of them has figured out who is which. From this unlikely pairing came a band unlike any other with Aron's hard rocking edge and Iain's mastery of an instrument, which is a proven, guaranteed DJ repellent. The only thing they had to do was come up with a name. Led Zeppelin was already taken, as was the Tanahill Weavers. The Led Weavers sounded pretty lame, as did the Tanahill Zeppelins so one mid afternoon, while playing hooky from work the boys found their name in a book somewhere. It was actually pretty uneventful. That name was Prydein (pry' den).

Call it what you will, celtic-rock, kilt-rock, bagpipe-rock, Scottish-rock or, our favourite, Sham-rock, two things are a constant, Prydein is a rock band that just happens to use the Great Highland Bagpipe of Scotland instead of a Gibson Les Paul coupled with a Marshall Stack which goes "to 11".

Often compared to AC/DC on Guinness and Whisky, Prydein gives a high-energy performance loved by young and old. Maybe it's that they don't swear (on stage... much) or maybe it's the fact that their children often hang out in back of the stage but a typical Prydein audience will usually be a pretty even mix of high school students and elementary school aged children, packs of disenchanted youth with hair the color of toxic waste and holes in their body that they weren't born with sitting next to elderly couples who could be the grandparents of the band members holding up cell phones in the air so that their children (usually old enough to be the band members' parents) can hear the amazing sound coming from a rock band with bagpipes. Call it what you will, they call it fun.