IT was supposed to be three days of metal and moshing in Scotland's highest village.

The audience were ready to pitch their tents for Wildfire, where 50 bands from several different countries were to take the stage at the Wanlockhead Inn.

When Covid-19 forced organisers to call off, fans didn't want to pull the plug altogether – and instead planned a weekend of (very) socially distanced camping in their individual gardens, where they've been listening to the sets by the featured acts on the radio instead.

Dubbed Spirit of Wildfire, the audio extravaganza's been running on web-based station greatmusicstories.com.

Featuring exclusive content, the audio-only version of the event dubbed "Scotland's premier rock festival" kicked off at 5pm on Friday, and it's still going today.

Organiser and promoter Dave Lee Ritchie said he'd had no choice but to cancel the Dumfriesshire event, but fan-power meant he had to do something to keep it alive.

"We needed to do something to give a taste of the weekend they'd been looking forward to," he said.

"People plan for this, they travel, they put money aside – for some its the music event of their summer. We didn't want them to lose all of that completely so we're doing something positive about it."

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Ritchie chose to cancel instead of postponing for a year because he felt that was "more honest", but many ticketholders have chosen not to claim refunds and instead to use this year's payment to pay for next year's tickets.

The organisers of festival behemoth Glastonbury gave their patrons the same option.

Vintage sets from that event have been running across the BBC this weekend, when it too was supposed to be staged.

Ritchie says the two aren't on quite the same scale, but the passion for live music held by his crowd is just as strong as that of the Glasto faithful.

"It's an underground scene, " he said, "but those who know, know."

The music will continue until late into the evening.

But Ritchie fears the impact of this year's cancellation will make staging future events harder, if sound, lighting, staging and other technical crews are unable to continue operating due to the loss of income in what should be the busiest part of their year.

For now, he's trying to stay positive about the future of the live music sector. "People are sending me messages saying they're camping in their own gardens or in their friends' garden, but at a responsible distance, just to have part of the experience.

"Live music is all about the experience. We can't have people standing together and mixing in a crowd at the moment, that's impossible, and we're seeing things like drive-in gigs starting to happen, but for real music fans, that can't compete with the real thing, so demand for that will still be there, if we can do it safely.

"If I can get to October or November and we're in a position when you can start to go to gigs again, I can start to get my income back."