REVIEW: Belladrum – these are the things, these are the things, the things that dreams are made of
The Human League – up front Joanne Catherall and Phil Oakey – headlining at Belladrum. Picture: MC
Belladrum Tartan Heart Festival | Friday July 31 | near Beauly
by Margaret Chrystall
IT’S a lot. A whole day ticket to see one band. But that’s the kind of deal you can do with yourself when you are officially old.
Back in the day, you’d run yourself ragged trying to see it all. The new music, the old favourites, the local heroes, the new young local acts, the buzz names, the random discoveries, the ones you just needed to hear at last, playing live.
Looking at the 2026 line-up … “If there was just one band at Belladrum this year that you couldn’t live without hearing, who would it be?” It was a fun game in every random moment as all the acts started to be announced, but to be honest, it took a microsecond to know.
Now, post-Bella, everyone is playing the game again on social media, choosing the names people dream of, hope for, second-guess in a bid maybe to persuade organisers to work out who might be good for 2027 (though those guys probably know most of it already!).
It’s a game everyone plays, and if you’re a regular Belladrum 3-dayer, you know you could probably hear all the choices on a bill that you fancy plus loads of others.
But when it’s no longer your job to witness it all and write about it, judge it, weigh it up – and also the whole festival experience, if you can – it’s different.
Being honest, though, the thought of not going along to every day to live it all, makes you shudder.
And is catching all that the TV offers up afterwards, is that going to do for the days missed? More of that later…
When you have lived the entire 3-day experience like a sensory waterboarding, filling up on sound-sight-smell-touch-taste. When you have walked it all into every fibre of you – rained on, sunburnt, freezing, sweating, cups of tea at the Kiltarlity tea tent, pizza slices, noodles, latte, water, a loll on damp grass, sinking into a Verb Garden sofa, getting teary-eyed at a red heart-shaped firework.
Is that TV coverage looking back going to do you afterwards, when you have always had those festival flashback moments and memories of it all leaking out of your brain for months after? The way faces you know suddenly loom out of the crowd at you or you remember the way the sun fell into that tent of music. Precious seconds when cool sanctuary blanketed you under shady trees. Musicians whose words tugged straight at you.
Or the hyped up hopes that fell flat. Big drama headliners that bored you rigid. But what about the stars on the cusp? The been-there legends, still gold?
Months into this year, with a shock you realise day tickets have just gone on sale and wistfully you replay the one-band game in your head. Just one day …
Early evening, surprised to find anything left, you buy the one-day ticket and keep it tucked away in your mind like a promise.
By the time the line-up for the day was on social media – and there were plenty of things you’d like to have seen the days before or after – a running order of possibles for my one day still looked great, before the big one.
Jellyfish artwork floats in the afternoon air at Belladrum. Picture: MC
Off the bus, a double-take confirmed ALAN TURNER from Dundee, who had played up here a lot back when The Rise were one of the familiar touring bands and festival supports, was playing in three slots across Belladrum and also had a single out, Fly Away. It must have been a while – he now has two kids and had managed a band for a while. But now he was back playing acoustic and doing his own music. And OK, there was room to add him in as early extra on my theoretical list of just one band for the whole day. Well, two actually …
At the Grassroots tent, also waiting to catch Inverness singer-songwriter WILLIE MacASKILL, the city musician DYLAN TIERNEY, his wife Carly-Jade and baby girl asleep in a pram, stood at the back of the Grassroots tent waiting to see him too.
“I’m just a spectator,” Dylan revealed, having decided to take a few months off from playing music, he said, while he caught up with life changes including baby Vienna.
But maybe a few minutes later he was baffled too when the artist who was soundchecking in that tent then started up – and wasn’t Willie! Photographer PAUL CAMPBELL was there and confirmed he had heard there had been a swap of artists at the tent but wasn’t sure where Willie was going to be on or when.
Later, strolling past the main door of the tent, you spotted the day’s line-up on a blackkboard THERE (of course!) after all. The two artists had just swapped, and you could hear from inside Willie introducing the band. Sure enough, frustratingly it was Willie’s last song of the set. Wherever You Are is an amazing song anyway and with Charlie Grey on fiddle, Kirsty Partridge (I think!) providing vocals, Derek Urquhart on guitar and Adam Goemans on the full-size bass, it sounded tantalisingly good for those few remaining milliseconds and it would be great to hear the whole line-up – and my lost set – again please, somewhere soon!
In between, there had been two other bands hovering on my theoretical list.
When you’ve never really had the chance before to sit down on a comfy straw bale at the two-stage BURKE & HAIR venue to while away an hour, you shouldn’t miss the chance to check out the back-to-back stages and turn the 180 degrees from the surreal world of HUGH REED & THE VELVET UNDERPANTS to the quirky songs of PETER J NOBLE and ensemble.
Before those two, PARTNERS IN CRHYME – with a little help from some giant dancing bears – saw John McGeoch and Jackie Goode distract the crowd from noticing the one thing the venue doesn’t have is a roof. Which Is unfortunate when heavy rain starts up. But hoods up and no-one bothered too much, particularly when Hugh Reed himself escaped the band’s soundcheck on the stage behind us and wandered through the crowd in a pair of giant red boxing gloves to start off their set.
First seen at the Hayloft venue in Inverness back in the 80s, some of Hugh Reed And The Velvet Underpants had ended up staying at mine and one got a sofa with no springs (cringe). But here at Bella, all these years on, it was a pleasure to see some of the same classic songs still in the set. Six To Wan is a football ditty with Hugh racing round the stage in a half-and-half Old Firm strip, a policeman’s uniform and a judge’s wig. He’s the only man I’ve ever seen to wear a TV set, then a Henry hoover on his head in Rock N Roll Survivor, before my personal favourite of the many props. Wielding a giant picture of the Beatles, Hugh punches out one of the heads to create an empty space and pops his own head through the hole. For fans in their Hugh Reed-logo sunspecs, it was singalong heaven – Ah’ve Just Had My Car Nicked, Glasgow Girls and an ode to Irn Bru (complete with giant can). But 30-odd years on, the jokes are still as funny, the set as art-school surreal as ever and the band’s subtle musicianship, just sublime.
Hugh Reed heads into the crowd with giant boxing gloves at Burke & Hair Picture: MC
Hugh in his Old Firm strip for Six To Wan. Picture: MC
That puppet looks a lot like Hugh Reed ... Picture: MC
So how do you top that? Peter J Noble’s set of new and old songs with audience participation, of course.
When you’ve followed Peter’s experiments in sound through his Cromarty Firth albums, you know the live experience brings a few duties for his crowd. For a start, moustaches given out during the Hugh Reed set were being worn by his drookit audience for opening song M.O.U.S.T.A.C.H.E. Instagram is the best way to catch up on everything from Peter’s series of soup to vegetable-head songs dramatised with the help of some of his UHI music college students. Plus lots more mini-epics to check out on Instagram (@peterjnoble1). But for Belladrum, we got Peter and his ensemble of son, daughter and regular guitarist Liam Ross, sharing Beer Instead Of Bread (and mask), Bald, Bins (with a riff borrowed from Jolene), Banana, and staying with food for last number Biscuits – an existential assessment with us of what really qualifies as a biscuit – before we got some thrown for us to catch as a generous finale.
Liam Ross (left) with Peter J Noble (third left) – almost visible – with his daughter and son. Picture: MC
At the Hot House stage, Bella favourites SCOUTING FOR GIRLS were entertaining and reminiscing and rolling out the songs most of any crowd just can’t help singing along to, having grown up with the band’s live appearances across the Highlands as they took over the pop charts.
Great to be back together for music, Rizzle Kicks’ Jordan and Harley wooed the crowd. Picture: MC
Mama Do The Hump, Skip To The Good Bit – by the time RIZZLE KICKS got to those songs, the crowd were head over heels back in love with the duo who admitted they had been away for eight years. Not long enough for the crowd to forget the outrageous good-time feel Jordan and Harley can add to create a summer vibe.
They made a great warm up for the Hot House headliner that many in the crowd were too young to remember properly from the band’s early days back in the late 70s/ early 80s.
Not that you would have guessed from the way they greeted THE HUMAN LEAGUE who eased onto the stage, drummer and keyboard players first, before Phil Oakey, Susan Ann Sulley and one-time Oakey life partner, Joanne Catherall, appeared and the slow, surging notes of megahit The Sound Of The Crowd throbbed out, activating a set that turned out to have everything the line-up had ever offered the world in their golden years.
Phil Oakey (left), Ben Smith on the keytar, drummer Rob Barton and Joanne Catherall. Picture: MC
But surely the band’s story …
> from late 1970s Sheffield to Edinburgh label Fast Product and their manager Bob Last
>securing genius producer Martin Rushent to create the stunningly original classic album Dare, their 1981 UK number 1 and US number 3 classic
>touring with everyone from Siouxsie And The Banshees to Iggy Pop in the earliest days
>recording experiences with links from Minneapolis to Phil’s idol Giorgio Moroder
…………………………………………………………………….………………… is far from over yet?
Already 15 years ago in an interview, it seemed settling for just satisfying fans’ nostalgia craving for the big hits like Don’t You Want Me – once the 25th biggest-selling single of all time – wasn’t ever going to be enough for The Human League.
Then Suzanne (now going by Susan Ann) declared that they weren’t supposed to still be around at all. But she understood what their fans needed from them at live shows: “They want to … be nostalgic and get that warm fuzzy feeling when they hear the first few bars of ‘that’ song … You are not supposed to still be doing it after 30 years, you’re supposed to have stopped by now”. Lead singer and songwriter Phil wryly added: “We’re supposed to be playing ballads on cruise ships.”
But even so, at Belladrum the band offered up a clever career-defining set that still indulged every fan’s craving to hear big hits from another era.
Besides, from the songs they played to the Hot House crowd, they just seemed to be enjoying it too much and to be doing it too well – by curating everything from backdrops and lighting, to costumes and song choices – to be accused by anyone of going through the motions or cynically milking any nostalgia circuit.
Thirteen songs in the main set – and unusually for a Bella headliner, an encore – gave everything you could have hoped to hear.
Phil Oakey, Nick Banks, Rob Barton and Ben Smith. Picture: MC
It started as the light began to fade and people jostled at the barrier down the front, as the roadies emptied the THL roller-trunks, instruments were set up. Lights went down, cheers went up. Then it came alive.
A huge backdrop lit up the back of the stage with white flashing lines. Big beats from the drummer Rob Barton back-centre-stage. Handclap effect added. The two keytar (Roland AX-7) players moved forward, Ben Smith in a long black coat and homburg hat playing the melody, then a seductive grumbling bassline from the second player, Nick Banks. Keyboard chords powered from both big white keytars as the players moved towards each other, eventually face-to-face centre stage, just as lead singer Phil strode out in dark glasses, pale square-shouldered short jacket with navy jewel attached, and enormous flared-trousers. Then, with a mic and that surging baritone voice, there was just Susan Ann and Joanne Catherall to sparkle on from either side of the stage.
The Sound Of The Crowd was a great place to start it all off with its menacing, other-worldly chanting and still that sci-fi futuristic sound of something new the song had had when it stormed the singles charts in 1981. And that’s still baked in, no matter what has come after. Hearing it again live and also huge in front of your eyes, you don’t need the nostalgia of remembering, if you were watching then. You are still there and maybe always will be, every time you hear it. Next, Fascination’s Mirror Man and a giant figure on the backdrop, led back to Dare.
Shades off, Phil shouted: “Good to see you Belladrum – this is our first Tartan Heart Festival!” And the band moved on to Dare’s These Are The Things That Dreams Are Made Of.
Heart Like A Wheel, with its poppy hook and a solo from Joanne, fast forwarded to slightly-under-the-radar final Virgin 1990 album Romantic?
Truthfully, you might not pick it out as Human League if you didn’t know it before.
“I am beginning to see why this is one of the biggest and best festivals in the UK, Europe and the world!” Phil flattered the crowd. But leap-frogging back to one of his storytelling songs, Louise, it made a closer link back to 1984’s difficult Hysteria album which the band struggled to feel happy with at the time – and yet, its “As if they were still lovers” refrain, is vintage.
A striking giant red backdrop screen of white numbers counting down added drama to Dare’s Seconds. When it originally came out, the video scrolled footage of John F Kennedy’s assassination, and a sense of drama was added at Belladrum as Phil – now wearing an oversize leather coat – sank down, head lowered, slumped and grieving, before ending the song standing with his arms wide, despairing. It made a dramatic sequence as they moved straight on into The Lebanon.
Let’s be honest, some critics in the past have had a problem with The Human League when they get serious (as in Seconds and The Lebanon), referring to “sixth-form angst” and cringey lyrics.
Yes, the powerful song about the Lebanese Civil War – written by Phil and former bandmate Jo Callis about a massacre/ genocide in Beirut’s Sabra area and the Shatila refugee camp in September 1982, struck a darker tone. But you still winced slightly at a line like “… where there used to be some shops/ is where the snipers sometimes hide”. But then you also marvel at how relevant and weirdly still truer than ever, is the lyrics’ question: “Weren’t we supposed to keep the peace?”.
Susan sang One Man In My Heart – an earwormy caught-between-two-lovers pop single that made number 13 in 1995, when it signalled, if nothing else, there was a post-Virgin future for the band.
And again highlighting a phase many fans might have missed, the performance moved on to the band’s second US number one single Human, perfect timing in the set with its story of a man and woman re-uniting.
Phil had reappeared in a uniquely suave, powder-blue, double-breasted suit. But he sounded as if he was singing generic, standard pop words – and he was. The song was written by the 1986 Crash album producers Jam & Lewis – from a recording experience in Minneapolis where Phil later said he felt like a puppet (but the group now say they learned a lot from).
From left – Susan Ann Sulley, Phil Oakey, Nick Banks, Rob Barton and Ben Smith. Picture: MC
Now in 2026 Phil spoke: “Thank you. From that 1986 song, here is one that goes back to Dare…”
If there’s one moment your imagination had led you to, when The Human League was first announced for Belladrum, it was this.
The chance to hear Love Action (I Believe In Love) playing into the Highland air we breathe. Its high ‘tseeoo-tseeoo-tseeoo’ notes reaching out across the fields and sanctifying us. The stuttering bassy chart-bothering beat kicking in to set the whole crowd stomping, hips swaying. And if you couldn’t hear the audience all bellowing it out like fools, then – confession – it was only because you were singing too embarrassingly loud to hear.
It was big enough to be the set closer, but there was only a quick tease through Tell Me When and way back to (Keep Feeling) Fascination, before it was time for the real one.
And in a reprise of the opening Sound Of The Crowd, the keytar guys were up again front-stage inspiring our word-perfect singing “…Or you will both be sorry!”.
Cue Phil coming on in a long pale coat and starting the call or return with Susan. “You were working as a waitress in a cocktail bar …” he began, moving stage right, both hands on his hips, turning to her as she replied, just a fraction behind the beat: “I was working as a waitress in a cocktail bar, that much is true ….” With her left hand on her hip, then cocking it to her ear for our response, we obliged, chorusing: “I still love you!”
Before he left the stage at the end of the song, Phil said: “Thank you so much for coming here to the Tartan Heart Festival at Belladrum. It’s brilliant to see you! You are turning this into the biggest festival there is. We are The Human League, thank you so much!” A few more lines of chorus, then: “Thank you so much, Belladrum. Good night!”
So soon?
But when he, then Susan and Joanne and the rest of the band left the stage, we kept going, singing on, maybe hoping the looping chorus would bring them back. No …
Yes!
Ben Smith and Phil Oakey, futuristic stage right. Picture: MC
And it was way back, too. Right back to the start, almost. Back to the days of first-ever single Being Boiled when the band began in 1977 as an “experimental industrial outfit” with the original Human League line-up starting as Phil on vocals with Martyn Ware and Ian Craig-Marsh (who both went on to form Heaven 17).
In the early days of the band, a Being Boiled demo had first been accepted by Edinburgh indie label Fast, run by Bob Last (later Human League’s manager). And the single became rock bible NME’s single of the week when it was released in 1978. In 1979 Human League were signed to Virgin, and they went on to feature the song on May 1980’s second album, Travelogue.
Now in 2026, on Belladrum’s enormous Hot House stage, with its exploding scarlet and fiery backdrop, Being Boiled almost let you hear the earlier sound of the band as it once was in the first encore’s long intro. Spare, forbidding, Phil’s voice was sepulchral.
When it started properly, the red churning circular organic mandala animated the backdrop. The three musicians played and Phil appeared in a white silky cloak and black visor, pacing the stage. And you suddenly remembered that bit where you always thought the melody sounded like Visage and you hummed in the words “fade to grey!”.
Finally, there couldn’t have been a bigger contrast with that early-days song and their last one of the night.
For that, the band let themselves embrace the fun and carnival feel of the Giorgio Moroder collab Together In Electric Dreams. All of the front three looked theatrical with Joanne in a red ostrich-feather head-dress and cloak releasing her inner showgirl, while Susan added a black top hat, silky cloak and long black gloves. Phil had dejacketed to reveal a less formal, more relaxed long cream shirt.
And from the ultimate synth band, the novelty of the group’s Nick Banks in a front-of-stage all-out electric guitar solo, was another ‘letting their hair down’ moment.
“Thanks, my brilliant audience,” Phil shouted. “You were fantastic with Rizzle Kicks, and now you’ve been fantastic with us. Never forget, it’s you that makes it!”
Being as close as you could get to the front of the stage, it had meant missing the moment the Dare songs had hit the crowd when you had hoped to turn backwards to look – and see the sound’s effect on all those faces. It would have been nice to see that. But that is where you thought the TV coverage would give you that missing moment …
Just one day, League legend live. PIcture: MC
But after three nights of hearing nothing about The Human League on BBCAlba’s Belladrum TV and not a minute of coverage making it to the screen, the answer came.
On the official Human League Facebook, fan queries about failing to find any TV footage were answered.
“If we ever decide to film one of our arena shows and sell the footage to Sky Arts or the BBC, we will. What we will not do is allow other people to film us and sell the rights, especially in situations we have little or no control over.”
OK. It was devastating to realise there wasn’t going to be any TV coverage, then. But maybe it shouldn’t have been a surprise…
The band has always been careful to create and control their own rules, right from the start. Virgin’s A&R boss Simon Draper, who signed them, remarked regretfully in a later interview that Phil had always insisted real instruments such as guitars and drums should not be part of the band’s sound (though there have been exceptions).
And being determined to keep their own self-imposed high standards – and not short-change fans – was another Phil Oakey maxim.
When album Dare was first riding high, Virgin wanted one more single – an unheard of then, fourth – to be released from it. But the lead singer said no, part of his strangely humble view of the band and his idea that the public must be “sick of us”. When the single the label wanted was Don’t You Want Me, Phil “slammed the brakes on”. He only agreed to it with the compromise that Virgin include a free poster with the 7-inch release – with an ‘Includes free poster’ sticker on the front at further expense – “to dodge any accusation of ripping off their fans”.
So in summer 2026, in some ways, it was devastating to know that wanting to be in control of their own public image meant you couldn’t see the Human League’s Belladrum performance on-screen. But they did film their 2003 tour set themselves, later releasing a DVD and special live album from the Brighton Dome. Maybe they would do the same from their recent American tour – or next year’s Australian tour?
But would that even be enough? By the end of their performance at Belladrum, you were longing to hear the new potential music journeys they still could make.
Plus, for the band, it may be the best reward for that continued creative compulsion they seem to have to keep trying to move on and not effectively retire and settle for the odd live performance at festivals and ‘best of’ international tours.
You were also wishing they might still want to create one final studio album to show for all the aborted potential and dashed hopes of some of the slightly misfiring album experiences since Dare.
Back in 2011, a reviewer quoted Phil as saying he would love to make a final album that features “…something from every former HL member in it, a co-writing credit, a small cameo, anything”.
And 2027 is their 50th year …
