Gnoss takes to the stage in North America

Orkney has been taking North America by storm this spring, as award-winning band Gnoss went on tour across the pond.

With Orkney’s own Graham Rorie and Aidan Moodie, as well as Perthshire’s Connor Sinclair and Craig Baxter, from Stirling, this band has been churning out tunes for over a decade, with their blend of traditional music and complementary flair.

This is far from being Gnoss’ first international excursion, with the band touring Australia in 2024, and performing at Danouter Festival in Belgium last year.

Graham and Aidan said: “It’s our first tour in North America and we couldn’t have started further away; the first show was in Anchorage, Alaska followed by a show in Fairbanks.

“The audiences have been really enthusiastic and all the venues are great. It’s been a really warm welcome.

“It’s pretty surreal to reach the other side of the globe and have 700 people cheering on your music. Amazing though!”

The tour was several years in the making, and came about when Matt Greenhill — who is now the band’s North American booking agent — was shown Gnoss’ Tiktok account by his daughter, sparking the tour’s conception.

“This tour route has some incredible stops along the way,” the band told The Orcadian.

“It was amazing to see Alaska; they have a very similar pace of life to Orkney given their remote location.

“The shows in Canada were great too — there were lots of people speaking about their links to Orkney there, as well as in the US shows, which is always nice.”

The tour has not been without its challenges, both with instruments and due to the size of the tour, with several of the performances requiring the band fly between performances, or take six to eight hour drives to reach their destinations.

“We’re taking it all in our stride but the distances are much larger here,” they said.

“There are a couple of six-to-eight-hour drives and a few of the shows require flights between them.

“We had the option of a 12-hour drive in a foot of snow between Calgary and Vancouver, or a flight, so we headed to the airport.

“Aidan’s guitar didn’t like the change in climates so we had to get it to a shop to be set up for our new audience — it ended up getting some TLC from the guitar tech for My Chemical Romance.”