BAGROCK pioneers Red Hot Hot Chilli Pipers will pipe up at Harrogate Royal Hall on May 13 2022, more than two years after the Scots were first scheduled to play there.
The pernicious pandemic’s relentless stranglehold has seen the date moved twice, first from April 24 in Lockdown 1.0 this year to April 10 2021 and now to next spring.
Such an impact that the rearranged 14-gig itinerary will form the Chilli Pipers’ 20th anniversary tour, set for April 28 to June 5 2022. Harrogate Royal Hall will be the only Yorkshire concert, with tickets on sale at harrogatetheatre.co.uk or thegigcartel.com/Artists-profiles/Red-Hot-Chilli-Pipers.htm.
Formed in 2002, the Chilli Pipers popped up for a cameo in The Darkness’s set at the 2004 T in the Park, going on to headline the Scottish festival a decade later.
Now “the most famous bagpipe band on the planet…ever”, they present “bagpipes with attitude, drums with a Scottish accent and a show that should carry its own health warning”.
In the Red Hot Chilli Pipers’ tool kit is a groundbreaking fusion of traditional Scottish music and rock and pop anthems that they proudly call “Bagrock”, engineered by world championship-winning musicians, dancers and singers.
In February 2019, the Chilli Pipers and Glasgow-born singer-songwriter Tom Walker released a piping-hot version of his debut hit Leave A Light On in aid of Nordoff Robins, the music therapy charity. Their fundraising collaboration came after Walker and the Chilli Pipers performed together at Murrayfield Stadium, Edinburgh, before a Scotland versus Italy Six Nations rugby match.
The Chilli Pipers last released a studio album in June 2019, when Fresh Air combined new songs and covers, ranging from Walker’s Leave The Light On to Leonard Cohen´s Hallalujah and Walk The Moon’s Shut Up And Dance, both with Chris Judge on vocals.
Among their career highlights have been winning the BBC talent show When Will I Be Famous; playing at the BBC Proms in Hyde Park, NBC Olympics Studio and Rugby World Cup, and recording their 2014 live DVD and CD, Live At The Lake, at Milwaukee Irish Fest, the band’s American spiritual home by the shores of Lake Michigan.
