What's the weirdest place you've ever played the pipes?

Here's one to start -
There's a cave high on a hill on Crete where local legend has it the god Zeus came into the world. While on holiday on Crete I climbed up to the cave (along with umpteen other tourists), and lo and behold there was a set of pipes sitting by the mouth of the cave, which one of the locals was guarding with his life. It turned out they belonged to a Dutch piping obsesive who took his pipes everywhere with him (except into the cave). So when he came out of the cave he and I had an impromptue pipeing session halfway up this Cretan hill.

Not so much weird but funny..

In the days before the Ballachulish bridge was built the only way across Loch Leven at the head of Glencoe, apart from a 12 mile detour right round the loch, was to join the queue for the ferry which only carried 6 cars at a time. In August that usually meant a wait of at least half-an-hour. On one occasion we could hear a tinker playing on the far shore raking in the money from the tourists on that side of the loch. While my brother sat at the wheel and slowly inched forward in the queue I tuned up my pipes and spent a mischievous 20 minutes or so echoing back to him every tune he played. :)

Hi Chris,
I remember in the sixties, a similar occasion playing to the coach parties at the bottom end of Glencoe. I was about 13 at the time. Not bad for a Bolton lad!

Other places - played whilst riding a camel in Tunisia and on the coach back to the hotel. I often used to practice at lunchtime at work in an electrical switchroom.

Alan. whistling

When I went over to Mexico last yr I was playin the pipes wiv a man from st pats pipe band in Mexico City. he also had spainish pipes which was very interesting to see and to listen. he also had Russian pipes i think. they where like small pipes but very tiny holes and i mean tiny u had to have ur fingers stook together. it was very supprising for me to here the pipes over in Mexico.

thts my story


craig m

never mind unusual places, the old joke about pipers clearing a room actually has just happened to me. i piped at a hotel in Marsden, Huddersfield for new year. Marched into the room playing auld Lang Syne at midnight as requested, and guests did form a circle and join hands. Then they went to watch fireworks from a veranda and I just stood and played some tunes. Then when the guests came back in, they all sat down at their tables and ignored me. I'd been booked for half an hour, so just carried on. Played all sorts, reels, jigs, slow airs the works and only reaction was from Ceilidh band who were enjoying some grub during their break. Wouldn't mind, pipes were singing, they were spot on. Can't really say the same about the piper, as it was really quite disconcerting playing to an empty dance floor, tables were next door through a partition. So that was the most civilised Hogmany I've ever known. Theresa x

Theresa has just gave me a idea for a new topic so I have opened a new topic to talk in more detail about everyones new yrs eve performance

craig m

The place wasn't all that weird but the situation we found ourselves in was....

A few years ago I was asked to supply two pipers to play on the "This Morning" programme on TV to mark the 200th anniversary of Robbie Burns. So I went along with a fellow piper to the TV studio in the Albert Dock for a morning's filming.


The producers wanted us at various times throughout the 2-hour live broadcast, sometimes just to provide a minute or two of audio background music, sometimes just to be spotted here and there in the background scene, playing outside on the dockside. We also had two spots to play inside the studio, one at the beginning of the programme and one at the end.

The programme was to begin with us both playing while descending to the floor of the studio via a spiral staircase which had been heavily disguised as a mountain glenside with a great mass of heather, with the odd bottle of whisky protruding here and there for added realism. :lol:.

We were then to stand playing for a few minutes behind the stars of the show while they introduced the morning's activities.

At the end of the show we were to play during a great whisky-tasting session by a panel of invited experts.

We had to turn up two hours before the live broadcast in order to sort out any glitches. During the rehearsal for the first scene, having asked if we were able to turn down the volume a little and having received a definite "No way!", the producer decided that the best course was to pre-record us playing a set of tunes and then have us mime our way through the entire first scene while they played back the recording at the desired volume. "Fine... No problem", we said. We then spent about half an hour making a really good recording for them to use during the scene.

3...2...1... "You're on".

With every available orifice now duly corked up, and both looking like the Queen's personal piper, we started our descent of this staircase right on cue, fingering our way through the first tune. But there was no tune....

Something had gone wrong in the technical department and the recording was not available. So we descended this staircase - on live TV - and took up our station behind the VIP's in total silence, looking terrific but feeling like Pratts.

Judy then turned round and giggled, "Oops, sorry about that, lads. We'll get it right next time."

The rest of the show went off fine. All the other spots went off without a hitch. At the end of the show we came in and provided a great finale while the whisky went down.

But I wonder how many of the several million viewers actually believed that this time we really WERE playing? :lol:


PS. I didn't tell anyone about the show until afterwards. But Dave had told all his workmates about it and they had all been glued to the telly to witness his moment of glory. :lol:

(a bit Off Topic) does n e 1 know of a guy called angus carpenter? he plays in l'pool city center probably every week its interesting to watch lol

craig m

Heres a tale for this topic,

Just last sumemr i was aksed to play at a Fire Service Dinenr held at the War Musem in Manchester, Fine i said.

with it being a fire servie gig, everything had to be spot on. Having spent soem two hours during the day working on my pipes to get a decent sound, and the rest of the time cleaning my uniform i was really looking the part. Thsi cleaning included, Washing and Ironing of Bag cover. Fully polished pipes and shoes! Brushed Sporran, pressed shirt, waist coat, tie and Jacket. Dry Cleaned Kilt! and Brand new Football Socks from All Sports, Umbro no less (most expensive)

I would say around 4 hours work

I went to the extent of getting changed at the place, so that everything would fall correctly.

I then marched in looking like something out of an Army Textbook. Asked the man in charge where i would be playing and to my horror i was asked to play at the top of the musem above the entrance, out of sight of anybody but so that they could hear my playing in the background. Needless to say after almost two hours of playing i was alittle hacked off that nobody actually saw me!

Yer ive heard him b4 i seen him........hmmm not a good thing

i know this topic is abit old like lol, but i thought id make a post in it coz ive played in some strange places!!

One of the funnyest ive played in has got to be in a mini bus!! I was playing a a wedding and i got transfered from the Wedding to the Recpiton via mini Bus. I had me pipes out of the boz ready to play as soon as we got there. The mini bus was full of jocks and micks and they had to say it didnt they..... play ya pipes!!!

So i played sitting down in the back of the mini bus with hargy no room to move around to get into a comfy postion to play!!

Also this year I got asked to pipe HMS Liverpool into dock! I was made up and the day was absalty brilliant. the story is to long to put up her, if i ever see anyone who wonts to now ill tell ya lol

I played in a US army field hospital in northern Iraq last year on Christmas day. The troops were a little confused to say the least. Next time I'll be more careful before making commitments to people while Drunk.

I'm sure the Chorley boys and Girls will remember playing as a Band on the Big Wheel on the Pier at Blackpool, Big Jim Conway on Base got his own seat but his playing suffered due to high winds (and nerves) going over the Top.
The playing was a bit up and down as well.

As a St Georges P/B 'Old Boy' myself, I'm very interested. Can you remember what year this was? Can you tell us any more about this story?

This is going back quite away to about '93' with Joe Swarbrick leading in the Band from the front seat. One of the lads in the Band came from Blackpool, his father ran a very successful support group for the Band and managed to get us a couple of spots on the Pleasure Beach before the 'Big Event'.
I have some Photo's somewhere, I will try to scan these and get them on.