Outwith Festival: Much more than just live music

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You don’t need to be a big city to host a great festival.

In fact some of the best I’ve been to have been out of the way or  wrapped around the smallest towns.

Number6  Festival at Portmeirion - where they filmed cult TV show The prisoner - had a vibe that was unique, welcoming and utterly captivating - while Butefest on Rothesay is simple the best wee festival I’ve ever been to.

So, it was fantastic to see Dunfermline strike out on behalf of Fife - a place far too often overlooked by the big promoters and performers -  and stage the Outwith Festival.

Curating  200 artists across 23 venues is no mean feat, so a tip of the hat to the organisers who not only pulled it off, but created something rather special in the process.

The centrepoint was certainly live day of music on Saturday where one pass let you roam into the town’s pubs and live  venues to see as many bands as you could cram in.

From Idlewild to new emerging talent, the line-up had something for everyone - where else could you skip from the Scots Guards to jazz supremi, Tommy Smith?

But Outwith was much more than just live music.

Across five days it  ranged from screenings of classic films - I loved the idea of a dementia friendly screening of Singing In The Rain, creating  a rather special day out for folks and their carers- to work in progress plays, conversations with writers and musicians, a stage for busking, art displays, and it brought local history to life.

On Saturday we managed to cram in four very different shows, and the smart scheduling  across the compact town centre we were able to get from venue to venue without any hold-ups.

From a packed Monty’s to catch opening band The Plastic Mac to Carnegie Hall to see  Fife College students perform Education, Education, Education and then on to the Fire Station Creative for  a gem of a show featuring Peter Kelly 'in conversation as well as singing his songs, topped off with a cracking gig by the Countess of Fife.

Peter was a new name to me, but he pretty much nailed it when he asked his audience how many had seen him before and   discovered very few of them had.

He was delighted that something about his show - its description in the brochure, a word of mouth recommendation or simple curiousity to find out more - brought people in.

And that’s surely the ethos of any good festival. Try something new. Take a pot luck. Note the times of the headliners, but venture into the smaller venues and breakout rooms.

We loved his music, enjoyed his chat and bought his book.
The Countess of Fife at Outwith

And we’d go see him again.

Downstairs in time for  the Countess of Fife’s gig which was simply smashing.

The band, led by Fay Fife, are clearly having a ball, their music is superb, and this gig went down a treat.

Fingers crossed we get Outwith Festival again in 2020.

It brought people into Fife, filled up a host of venues and had a breadth and depth that ticked pretty much every box.

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