The (Best) Little Fest in the West

So, on the first day at Loopallu I was talking to a (pleasantly drunk) member of the entourage of the Glenrothes-based band Sergeant, who was getting over just how long it had taken them all to get up to Ullapool. He asked if I was local. “No, I’ve come up from Cambridge”, I replied. I wasn’t showing off – it sounded rather daft to have travelled all that way for this “little fest in the West”, actually. But it was a great couple of days. Of course, the Saw Doctors were brilliant – they always are – and were unsurprisingly the highlight of the weekend for me. You’d have expected the other headliners, Franz Ferdinand, to also be a cut above the rest, and indeed they were, in the tradition of “bigger name” bands who have the ability to effortlessly take a festival up a notch. The “finds” of the festival for me were Sergeant and The Family Mahone. I always think a festival is good if you can find one new band you like each day, and Loopallu didn’t disappoint. (Big) Top work!