Claymore readies to rock

THE National Celtic Festival is only weeks away and more than 15,000 revellers will immerse themselves in a sea of Celtic acts on Portarlington’s foreshore.

Amongst the local and global stars locked in to perform over the long weekend (June 8-11) on one of 14 stages is Australian Celtic rock band Claymore and William Hutton (lead singer) said his band hadn’t missed a festival yet.

“We really love playing at the Celtic festival and haven’t missed a year yet. The festival has grown in leaps and bounds, pretty much form a local and statewide type festival to a truly international event,” Mr Hutton said.

“The festival attracts so many international performers who are really keen to play. It’s certainly starting to get up there, it’s the biggest purely Celtic festival in the country.

“We always try and bring something new every time we come, we also have a lot of classic favourite everybody loves if we drop them off we get into trouble.”

The multi-instrumentalists not only manage to combine traditional elements of Celtic music with rock, they also write beautiful original Celtic compositions, and lend their style to some power rock classics, all with an Irish and Scottish twist.

Mr Hutton said they’ve done the festival so many times and family and friends always come along and sing their songs before they’re even on stage.

“It’s a great family atmosphere, we get everyone from three years to 90 years old. We always get plenty of time to take in the festival, the beauty of being in Claymore is we get the late shift so get to watch the festival all day. Altan are coming this year, they’re one of the biggest Irish bands on the planet,” he said.

“The festival’s just full of brilliant national and international acts. I was born into and brought up with the Celtic culture, although I’ve made Australia home your heart is often where you are born; I consider myself a Celtic Australian.”

For tickets, go to nationalcelticfestival.com.