Other than the odd piper or Gaelic singer, the Isle of Harris is a place usually short of much live music. Visitors comment on the almost eerie silence that covers the island from dawn ’til dusk. After dark, the best you can hope for is an appearance from the local covers band Passing Places – or perhaps a ceilidh in the village hall. So you can imagine the commotion when one of the world’s biggest DJs turns up to play for an audience of 200 vape-wielding teenagers and tattooed ravers on a Friday night.
Months after playing for an audience of 20,000 at Madison Square Gardens and closing Coachella with a main stage performance alongside Skrillex and Four Tet, Fred Again announced he would be coming to the Outer Hebrides. And not for a holiday: his three-date tour would see him play village halls on Skye and the Isles of Lewis and Harris, each venue more remote than the last.
“After the last two years of shows, me and the timeless Tony [Friend, a producer and collaborator] have sooooo many things that we wanna try,” he posted on Instagram. “And I wanted to try them somewhere I wouldn’t usually get to play. And I lofvvved that time we got the mad train up to Mallaig in Scotland. So with that in minndddddd im really exciteddd to announce our mini tour of the Hebridean Islands.”
Linda Armstrong, the venue’s manager, is initially confused. “It’s all very odd – we’re not allowed to advertise it.” Clearly, she’s not yet Googled her most recent booking to see that with 1.3m Instagram followers, Fred can probably do most of the heavy lifting himself when it comes to marketing. The residents of Harris are equally baffled by the unexpected arrival at Talla na Mara, the community centre overlooking the deserted but breathtaking Noisaboist Beach on the west coast of the island.
“He’s even bringing security and everyone is being frisked! Frisked on Harris?! Unheard of. How thrilling,” someone exclaims on a local WhatsApp group. On the night, the door is being staffed by Neil MacDonald, a crofter from nearby Luskentyre. Neighbours are peering out of their houses, bemused by the sudden activity in a venue that usually plays host to pensioners’ lunches, tweed-weaving groups and Gaelic choirs.
If islanders were concerned about being inundated with tourists, they needn’t have worried. Tickets to all three shows were mostly sold direct from the venues in person, so most of the punters are locals. Nathan from nearby Tarbert is 17 and has come with his dad, a PE teacher from the local school, while Chiemene (20) and Matthew (21) have come down from the Isle of Lewis. “We heard Fred was coming up here and I knew I had to come back for it,” says Chiemene, who is at university in Glasgow but originally from Stornoway.
On Friday night, Fred Again arrives on stage in his trademark tracksuit pants and baggy T-shirt against a backdrop, visible through the window, of muted pastel landscape, a neolithic standing stone and the distant view of Taransay Island (where the 2000 TV show Castaway was shot). At Primavera last year, Fred’s set was introspective and earnest, a marker of the return to live music after the tough times endured by all during Covid. Tonight in Harris, however, Marea (We’ve Lost Dancing) is given a celebratory, optimistic facelift, the Blessed Madonna’s sombre speech giving way to heady electronics, dynamic live drum programming and vibrant gearshifts.
A can of Tennent’s flies overhead and at one point a Scottish flag is raised above the heads of the crowd. Fred Again’s latest album is Secret Life, a surprise-released ambient record created in collaboration with his friend and mentor Brian Eno. But there’s no space for meditative ambient textures here: this is a room of enthusiastic young ravers, who usually have to travel across land and sea to dance in a sweaty club. They want a party.
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It’s undoubtedly the first time Talla na Mara has hosted this many young people. Harris is an island troubled by its dwindling population thanks to the exodus of teenagers to the mainland, many of whom never return. Jobs are unfilled, crofts lie untended and businesses are forced to close due to staffing issues. Seeing many of these twentysomethings return home for a gig of this magnitude is gratifying and hopeful. While there is much talk elsewhere in the cultural landscape about “levelling up”, many artists continue to tread the same path of major cities and venues across Europe. Perhaps more should rethink their pre-Glastonbury schedules. I hear the Shetlands are majestic this time of year.
