Fine Friday Reviews

"A startingly varied and imaginative first album of instrumental music and song. Nuala Kennedy’s masterly skill on wooden flute and whistle reflects her Irish traditional roots (hear her air in “special People’), Kris Drever’s huge abilities on accoustic guitar are married to an expressive, highly-evolved contemporary singing style, while Anna-Wendy Stevenson has beautiful tone and touch and technique from a classical background. Very fine indeed."

Norman Chalmers - Scotland on Sunday

"A Fine debut album from this trio, featuring the strong singing and guitar playing of Kris Drever (it clearly runs in the family – his dad is Ivan Drever), Nuala Kennedy on flute and whistle, and fiddler Anna-Wendy Stevenson. Gone Dancing mainly draws on songs and tunes from Scotland and Ireland, mixing traditional material with more contemporary songs by the likes of Boo Herwedine and Steve Tilston, although Stevenson also contributes a set of tunes from Norway. The music is well-chosen and nicely paced, and rendered in beautifully expressive fashion."

Kenny Mathieson - The Scotsman

"Fine Friday - just how many pleasurable, even delicious, associations do those two words conjure up? Now imagine the sweetest, the merriest and the mellowest of those memories distilled into a silkily integrated partnership of fiddle, flute, whistles, guitar and vocals: that's Fine Friday the band."
Sue Wilson - The Herald
"Fine Friday are a three piece band who formed out of a regular session at Sandy Bell's bar in Edinburgh. Guitarist and singer Kris Dever and fiddle player Anna-Wendy Stevenson are Scottish while flute player Nuala Kennedy is from Dundalk in Ireland. This leads to an interesting combination of musical styles, with instrumental sets of either Scottish or Irish origin and the addition of a few written by either Stevenson or Kennedy. Both are fine players whose unison work almost blends into the one instrument. Kris Dever contributes songs from a variety of sources. The two traditional songs, 'Cold Blow' and 'Selkie', are subtlety different from the more common versions and helped along by his unexpected chord patterns on guitar. Two more songs from Bo Herwerdine - whose songs seem to be popping up all over the place recently - and Steve Tilson are also included but which fit the style and feel of the album. Dever has a good ear for a melody and a pleasant voice in addition to his guitar playing which flows from single note lines to block jazz chords depending on what is required. Edinburgh has emerged in recent years as a hub of an exciting spontaneity of Scottish folk music. It is a place where musicians want to live and have the opportunity to interact with other musicians and from this has come an unceasing stream of interesting music. Fine Friday is the latest of these."

Graham McDonald - Canberra Times

"The trio who make up Fine Friday are two Scots, fiddle player Anna-Wendy Stevenson from Edinburgh, and singer/guitarist Kris Drever from Orkney, and from Ireland, flute and whistles player Nuala Kennedy, a native of Dundalk, Co. Louth.
The three used to meet regularly at Edinburgh’s Sandy Bell’s, the city’s most famous folk club, and became a group in late 2000. They’re still young, but all are seasoned musicians, and on this their first CD, sound like they’ve been together forever. Anna-Wendy I know from her playing with the group Anam, another Scots-Irish group.
“Gone Dancing” proves that if you are hoping to establish a successful band, first, find people who are talented musicians; seems obvious? Well, it should, but no amount of charm, good appearance, and sell will substitute for talent; oh yes , Fine Friday have these qualities, too, I agree, but they’re fine musicians first and foremost.
Nuala Kennedy is a highly regarded flute player, and deservedly so, but when it comes to singing, she needn’t be backwards in coming forward either. She has a very sexy alto voice and is most accomplished in supplying harmonies for Kris Drever in his songs. Anna-Wendy’s a musician to her fingertips, speaking of which! She has fun with “Spacehoppers”, two ‘complimentary’, tunes which she says, are ‘hornpipes in disguise’:”Compliments to Sean Maguire”(by Brendan Mulvihill), “Compliments to Hugh Hughson of Newcastle” (by Willie Hunter)."

Irish Music Magazine

"Meet a remarkable young band from Scotland. "FINE FRIDAY" is the trio, whose "GONE DANCING" is an uncommonly fine first album. It's definitely "Scots traditional" but innovative too. NUALA KENNEDY can really play the flute. ANNA WENDY STEVENSON is surely the only fine "folk" fiddler to have accompanied crooner Tony Bennett. KRIS DREVER (PRON: DRAY-vuh) is an exceptional singer - who won't remind you of Tony Bennet - and he's an excellent guitarist. Textures are refeshingly open. Tweeness and cliches are happily absent. "Fine Friday" has a playful, sensitive, collective intelligence"

ABC The Planet Australian National Radio