Bands break up all the time and get back together, but not always do you hear about two pipe bands joining together to save both. Since 1982, the Glen Erin Pipe Band has been playing, originally formed from two different bands, MacLeod Lewis Pipe Band from St. Johns, Mich., and the Clan MacNeil Pipe Band from Okemos. Terry Carroll was a part of the Clan MacNeil Pipe Band before it joined forces to form the Glen Erin Pipe Band.
“The ranks were a bit thin on both sides,” Carroll said with a British accent.
Today, the pipe band has more then 15 members and plays from January to November, performing all over the state from Mackinac Island to Eaton Rapids, Mich. The Eaton Rapids Independence Day Parade is something the band has gone to for many years during the Fourth of July, but the Mackinac Island Lilac Festival is the band’s biggest event of the year. Thousands of people go out to the Lilac Festival each year, which makes it a big hit for the band.
“The crowd are 10 deep and they’re all cheering,” Glen Erin Pipe Band Pipe Major Bill Collins said.
Collins has been with the band since his senior year at MSU, and said the hobby started out of boredom.
“I was looking for some outlet of performance and I found the pipe band at the Fourth of July parade in my hometown,” Collins said.
Now as the band continues to get older, members are looking to youth to fill places in the band. Collins said it doesn’t matter if anyone has played music or not before, as they take all different kinds of people regardless of heritage, with many of the current band members having no family ties to music.
“Not too many people grow up playing the bagpipes so we take beginners,” Collins said with a smile.
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