The Big Shoogle

The Big Shoogle are a Scottish ceilidh band with over 17 years’ experience playing for weddings, civil partnerships, parties, graduation balls, school proms, festivals, concerts and corporate events in some of the most prestigious venues at home and overseas. If you want the very best Scottish ceilidh band with top class professional musicians and a highly experienced ceilidh dance caller – then look no further. We are a 3-piece band comprising midi accordion (+vocals), electric guitar, drums (+vocals) but often work with a fiddle player as a 4-piece. If you want a wild party with a Scottish flavour anywhere in the world, call us. And if you can’t handle a full-on Big Shoogle ceilidh for the whole evening, there are the covers of great pop & rock songs, all played live – we don’t use backing tracks!
You’ll know when you’ve been Shoogled!

Frequently Asked Questions

Do you have your own equipment or do we need to supply anything?
We are completely self-sufficient with our own PA system and stage lights. Our PA is a state-of-the-art active sound system that can split into 3 different sizes to suit all venues from small, intimate venues, medium-sized function suites and halls up to the biggest ballrooms. Our stage lighting is a mixture of traditional tungsten “parcans”, the latest LED pars and laser systems. All equipment is PAT tested for electrical safety, which is now a requirement for most high quality venues. We do require 2 × 13A 240V sockets to power our equipment, preferably one at each side of the stage.

Do you give instructions for the ceilidh dances?
Yes. Our expert dance caller will guide your guests through the steps of all the dances. So if you’ve never been to a ceilidh before and don’t know the difference between a Dashing White Sergeant and a Haggis Supper our caller will have you shoogling around the floor like an expert in no time. At most functions and wedding ceilidhs there’s a mixture of experienced dancers, novices and people who have never been to a ceilidh before. Our aim is to include everyone so each evening is treated individually, where, with our 17 years’ experience enables us to strike the perfect balance between instruction, participation, insults and humiliation (!!) and participation. It’s all done with a wicked sense of humour and in a relaxed and informal style. For some international corporate events our dance caller will actually demonstrate dances from the dancefloor with the help of a suitable volunteer and a headset radio microphone.
We also take great pride in the fact that we can encourage guests on to the floor even if they are a tad reluctant at first. Really – if we can’t get a dancefloor filled – nobody can.

Do you play any music during the buffet break?
Yes, We have a portable CD Player and an iPod in our kit, which we use for playing background music during any breaks. We have a selection of compilation playlists already made up but if you would like to make up one of your own on your iPod or mp3 player, we’ll gladly connect it to our sound system for you. This music can either be background music, or, if you wish, louder and more upbeat if you wish to create a disco atmosphere. If you do, we’ll turn our LED stage lights and lasers around to light the dance floor and switch them on to “sound-to-light” to create the full disco effect.

Will you learn a tune or a song for our first dance?
Yes, we can learn a tune for you if you have a specific request. Please give as much notice as possible for this. For traditional Scottish tunes we can often sight-read and play them the first time we see them but it’s better to get to know them better to do them justice. Chances are we may already know the tune anyway.
If you want us to learn a song for your first dance that’s usually ok too but we’d definitely need plenty notice because many songs often have complicated arrangements with many parts since many artistes use numerous musicians on their recordings. Arrangements have to be adapted to suit the instrumentation, which is more often the 3-piece band. However, people are always amazed at the full sound we produce with just the three musicians. Occasionally we will advise a client that a particular song would be best left to the original artistes (we’d hate to murder a great song…!) and the option is there to play the song from cd or iPod.

What’s so unique about The Big Shoogle?
One of the unique things about us is that we can play pop/rock covers. Primarily, we are a bona fide ceilidh band so play all the traditional celtic ceilidh music and call the dances all night for a full evening’s ceilidh if required. But, we can play a set of traditional ceilidh tunes and a set of cover songs, or mix and match as the evening progresses. We even mix rock and pop songs into the ceilidh sets, for example, in the Dashing White Sergeant set we segway into our own fast version of Another Brick In The Wall, by Pink Floyd and in one of the Strip the Willow sets we mix in Smoke on the Water by Deep Purple! We can read a crowd and adapt the music each night to suit any event. We’ve many years of experience so know instinctively how to adapt. There are very few bands that can play both styles properly. There are some excellent covers bands who’ll play a short ceilidh set during the evening but many we’ve heard were not able to play the ceilidh stuff very well. And there are some excellent ceilidh bands that played some covers, and while their ceilidh material was excellent, their cover songs were weak. We pride ourselves in being able to cover both bases extremely well. All that, of course, as well as our extremely professional approach, expert dance calling and compering, and of course, stunning good looks. And we’re very modest too…

Can you provide a disco?
We do not actually provide a disco ourselves, as such, but prefer to recommend some of the excellent professional DJs we’ve met on our travels and let them look after that. We could “do a disco” ourselves, but it’s best left to the experts. Again, DJs are a mixed bag. We’ve heard hundreds over the years, some excellent and some not so. So when we come across an excellent one we take a card from them with their details in case anyone asks us if we know any good DJs!. We’d be delighted to pass their details to you. It’s very popular just now for brides and grooms to book a band for the first half of the evening and a DJ for the latter part. Anything is possible. We’d be delighted to discuss your requirements to make sure you get exactly what you want.

How far will you travel to play?
We’re based in Glasgow, so a considerable amount of our work is in Central Scotland but we do regularly travel UK-wide and overseas, having played in France, Italy, Belgium, Scandinavia, Azerbaijan, The Middle East and Russia on numerous occasions for weddings, festivals, St. Andrews Balls and corporate events.

How loud are you?
Our volume levels are set so that it’s loud enough to create an exciting atmosphere on the dancefloor and do justice to the energy we put in to the music, while keeping it at a comfortable level for your guests who are not dancing and wish to have a conversation. Our sound system is of the highest quality. For festivals and graduation balls the levels are often higher to suit the younger audiences and the music we play is generally our faster, high-energy material.

If there’s anything you’d like to ask – please email us at info@thebigshoogle.com and we’d be delighted to assist.

Best wishes

Davie, Tom & Gordon.

www.thebigshoogle.com