Súgán
Birth
& evolution
The first steps in the birth of Súgán as
a group go back to the early nineties, when, in a sporadic way, various
musicians got together to form jam sessions in pubs in the Greater Bilbao
area. Those regular musical get-togethers were to draw together more friends
each time and create, little by little, the feeling of a group by which,
the sessions were passed over for serious rehearsals
Not much later on, their first live concerts were
to come along and with them the need to pick a name for the group. And
so it was, the name Súgán was to be adopted form the Irish-Gaelic
word meaning rush or twine rope, a material used in traditional craft work
that covered the chairs in the place that saw the birth of the group.
Súgán’s sound is a combination of voices,
acoustic guitar, bass, drums, fiddle, flutes and Galician bagpipes. The
group’s style and sound has evolved from an initial period when the instrumentation
was characterised by an absolute predominance of melodical acoustic instruments
and a set exclusively centred in the traditional style. However, the later
introduction of drums and electric bass meant a radical change in the groups
concept of style and sound and opened up new creative possibilities.
The more known the group became, the wider the area
of concerts they gave: Castro-Urdiales, Elorrio, Eibar, Arrasate...Súgán
have performed extensively but there is one gig or a series of them that
is worth mentioning- the celebration of St. Patrick’s day.
The feast of the patron Saint of Ireland is usually,
for lovers of folk, a good enough excuse to get together and have a whale
of a time enjoying this type of music. It should be pointed out that the
group had its first concert on that date in 1993. On the first celebration
held in Bilbao of St. Patrick’s Day. Since then, the group has been indisputably
linked to this event and has been in great demand on all occasions to liven
up the celebration, always with great capacity audiences and exciting atmosphere.
A lot of water has passed under the bridge since the
group’s first concert, that St. Patrick’s Day of 1993, Folk festivals of
Getxo (Vizcaya), Castro-Urdiales (Cantabria), Guitiriz (Galicia) The Big
Week (Bilbao) (Supporting group to Four Men and a Dog), and lots of concerts
in the fiestas of different municipalities and concert halls (Kafe-antzokia,
Bilbao-rock .etc.) as well as a long list of concerts in small clubs. All
of this has meant a wide range of possibilities to make themselves known.
