All that experience is necessary, given the range of venues Caledon has played in the few short years since they were first formed. How many other opera singers have sung to 55,000 people at Hampden Park? The occasion was Scotland’s European Cup Qualifier against Germany in 2003 and the trio sang what may well be the definitive version of “Flower Of Scotland”. The memory still makes the hair on the back of Jamie’s neck stand up — which is nothing to what it did for the audience!

Hampden also saw the launch of Caledon’s famous Lion Rampant kilts — “a nod in the direction of Ivan’s Royal lineage!” Jamie jokes. The kilts proved to be a marker for the 65,000 fans at the prestigious “T in the Park” pop festival which the trio played the very next week (another first). When they entered by the wrong gate and had to walk through the crowd in their distinctive attire, it was to murmurs all round of, “There’s the Flower O’ Scotland guys!” When you add to the list of their performance venues the Sydney Opera House, the United Nations Building, where they sang “A Man’s A Man For A’ That” in front of Kofi Annan at the first Robert Burns Memorial Lecture, and even a performance for Donald Trump, you’d think nothing would faze them but you’d be wrong. Hot on the heels of their triumphs at Hampden and “T in the Park”, they were scheduled to appear before 350 WRI members in a village hall in the north of Scotland. It wasn’t that the audience weren’t enthusiastic — quite the reverse.

“I don’t know if they’d seen the posters and thought we were the Scottish Chippendales . . .” Alan begins. “But put it this way,” Jamie adds, finishing the sentence as only those who are close to one another can do, “My sporran developed alopecia!”

Overly-enthusiastic fans aside, their biggest problem on tours is the varying sound systems they encounter. “A lot of sound engineers these days are used to the kind of music where dynamic variety is not an issue,” Jamie comments. “As soon as we go quiet, they turn up the volume then when we sing loudly again, the walls are shaking! Now we’re learning how to explain our requirements to them.”

Certainly there shouldn’t be any problems when they return to Tipi das Zelt, Berlin’s renowned cabaret venue where, on a previous visit, they put together a medley of songs, all with a Scottish connection, that had been popular in Germany over the last 30 years. These included songs by Wet Wet Wet, Gerry Rafferty, the Eurythmics, Paul McCartney’s “Mull of Kintyre” and even a James Bond medley. Well, the laddie was the son of Andrew Bond of Skye and it was an excuse to don black kilts and black bow ties.

...continued in Part 4

Esther Read

copyright 2006 The Scots Magazine