Admiral Fallow and Dream Pop on the agenda for the 9th annual Kintyre Songwriters Festival. The 9th annual Kintyre Songwriters Festival will be held on 27th-29th May, promising yet another weekend of great entertainment for music-lovers in Campbeltown.

The festival starts earlier this year with a friendly open stage event at Whisky Macs on Thursday evening. Friday night in Whisky Macs is rock night, with 8 local acts performing over the evening including Violent Echo, Gullion, The Shift and Bob Ross Appreciation Society.

The festival is all about local talent, thanks to Kintyre being blessed with an abundance of musicians, but each year the festival also attracts the best of scottish songwriting talent who want to sample the unique atmosphere.

At the White Hart on Saturday, the headliner will be Martha Ffion, who has has been described as creating 'Classic songwriting with a dream pop sheen'. She has been played regularly on BBC 6 Music after signing to the ultra-hip Turnstile Records label. She will be joined by pop renegade Marc Rooney, frontman of Glasgow indie institution Pronto Mama, and Mayor Stubbs, whose unique take on the "one man and a guitar" format has seen him wow audiences on the Glasgow acoustic scene. The night will also feature a set by The Gilchristians, playing the music of festival founder Kenneth Campbell Gilchrist, and many more including Matt McAllister, Adam Fortune and Sleeping With The Enemy.

Sunday night headliner is Louis Abbott, singer and songwriter with top scottish indie act Admiral Fallow, who have headlined big stages at countless festivals. He is joined by acoustic guitar wizard Finn LeMarinel, and up-and-coming Glaswegian female singer-songwriter Shanine Gallagher. The night will feature the much anticipated return of "turbo-dreich" from The Wild Sarachs, alongside other regular local performers like The Twisted Melons and David Fee.

Almost a decade has past since the community in Campbeltown suffered the loss of one of the finest songwriters to come from the toon, Kenny Gilchrist. It was Kenny’s ambition, along with musician Ross Macinnes, to set up a music festival to showcase local talent but as the plans were taking shape he was tragically killed in a car crash. Instead a group of local musicians took up the baton and launched the first ever Kintyre Songwriters Festival in 2008.
Since then the festival has gone from strength to strength attracting names such as Frightened Rabbit’s Scott Hutchison, Be Charlotte and Angus Munro in recent years. The weekend is split into three nights with the Friday held in the local pub, Whisky Macs, with free entry. This year saw impressive sets from natives The Twisted Melons, Gullion, Violent Echo, The Shift and The Bob Ross Appreciation Society, amongst others, with the locals getting into the swing of things early on in the weekend.
The Saturday and Sunday day slots are filled with two open mic sessions, again hosted in Whisky Macs, and are usually well attended despite some frankly abhorrent hangovers with this year being no exception.
As for the evening sets, these are held in the White Hart Hotel and this is where the festival really comes into its own. The pub band mindset is put to one side and the performers are given the chance to showcase their work with sets of about three songs each under concert conditions. The combination of a seated venue and an overwhelming respect for the artists makes the KSF one of Scotland’s best grassroots festivals to highlight both new and established talent.
Local acts such as Matthew McAllister, Sleeping With The Enemy and Adam Fortune impressed the crowd on Saturday night before headliners Marc Rooney (Pronto Mama), Mayor Stubbs and Martha Ffion rounded things off nicely. And, as is tradition, The Gilchristians, who formed to carry forward the music of founder Kenny Gilchrist, played us out with some of Kenny’s finest tunes.
Sunday night, known locally as 'survivor’s night', was again split between local performers and some bigger names such as Louis Abbott (Admiral Fallow), Finn LeMarinel and Shanine Gallagher.
Well, another year and another KSF. Let’s hope that year ten will prove to be just as much of a success.