Good News: The Red Hot Chilli Pipers Are Coming to Perth for the Christmas Lights, and Fireworks Will Follow, Weather Permitting, Which It Never Does
The switch-on weekend promises music, lights and a procession. Perth's children have already started counting the sleeps.
A pipe band performing, which Perth will soon be enjoying in a woolly hat. Photo: Deb Nystrom, “St. Andrew’s Society Pipe Band, Canada and USA Freedom Sunday, Historic Trinity Lutheran Church, 2013-06-23”, via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0
Perth’s Christmas lights switch-on is on Saturday 21 November, and the city has got some very good news: the Red Hot Chilli Pipers are coming.
The band, famous for playing rock songs on bagpipes, will headline the main stage on Tay Street. QFX and other acts are also performing, and the lights will go on at 6pm, with fireworks afterwards and a procession on the Sunday.
“My grandchildren are beside themselves,” said a Muirton woman. “They’ve been asking every day since they heard. I’ve told them it’s 19 sleeps. They’ve asked how many sleeps that is in minutes. I’ve told them to go to sleep.”
A Perth piper who plays in a pipe band said he was thrilled. “People think bagpipes are old-fashioned,” he said. “Then these boys come along and play rock music, and everybody’s dancing. It’s good for the pipes. It’s good for Perth. It might be bad for my neighbours, because I’ll be practising.”
The event is free, and is one of the busiest nights of the year in Perth city centre.
The Perthetic is delighted, and promises to report on the switch-on from the front of the crowd. Our reporter is six foot five. Apologies in advance to whoever is behind him.
The real story: Red Hot Chilli Pipers to headline (The Courier)
Letters to the Editor
The views expressed are those of the reader, and frankly that's on them.
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Weather permitting. Weather has never permitted. We’ll be under the Concert Hall canopy with a flask.
— Pat S., Scone, 2 November 2026 -
The pipers will warm us up. Bagpipes are very good for frightening the cold away.
— Lorna B., Cherrybank, 2 November 2026 -
Dragged my weans along last year. They loved it. I’ve still no feeling in two toes.
— Ally H., Tulloch, 2 November 2026
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