Fans of folk music take heed because Battlefield Band, the renowned Scottish band is playing at the Marsee Saturday at 8 p.m., so get ready for a foot tapping, Highland jam to knock your kilts off. Battlefield Band avoids the usual humdrum associated with other types of folk music by mixing contagious Scottish dance music with rich, traditional Celtic tunes. It combines old and new instruments such as bagpipes, synthesizers, fiddles, guitars, cittern, bass, whistles and bouzouki.

“We find that younger, American students think of folk music as not cool and too stuffy,” Alan Reid, keyboardist, vocalist and songwriter for the band, said. “However, the best way to experience us is live, because we like to play exciting and melodic music.”

Battlefield Band has been performing internationally for 30 years and Alan Reid, the longest serving member, said that the key to their success comes from the fact that they are entertaining no matter what country they perform in.

“We play to a lot of foreign audiences and they come away having had a really good time,” Reid said. “Compared to our English neighbors, we always thought that the music under the Celtic umbrella was more exciting. That’s why we have had such great success all over the world.”

The band was born in 1969 after the explosion of pop had saturated the music scene. The members had discovered the Irish bands Planxty and The Bothy Band who were doing something different than the usual four-man, flimsily suited pop get-up. The Irish bands were making a new sound by blending traditional Irish music with some rock and pop.

“These Irish bands were different from traditional folk bands. They looked more like rock stars with their long hair and casual dress, and that was appealing to us,” Reid said.

After the members of Battlefield Band saw what the Irish were doing, they wondered if they could do the same for Scottish music. They started incorporating the bag pipes and the fiddle in Scottish music in a style that nobody had ever heard before.

“We were very cutting edge when it came to folk music in the 1970s,” Reid said.

Battlefield Band started in 1969, where it was named after the “Battlefield” area of Glasgow, Scotland.

The musical group has four members today, though the band has undergone many changes in the past three decades.

A founder of the band, keyboardist, accordionist and vocalist, Alan Reid, lives in Torrance, Scotland. Mike Katz plays the Highland bagpipes, small pipes and whistles and he has earned himself a fine reputation as a musician. Alasdair White plays the fiddle, whistle, bouzouki, Highland and small pipes. White comes from the Isle of Lewis, one of the Gaelic speaking Outer Hebrides where music and culture remain strong in everyday living. Sean O’Donnell joins Reid in singing the vocals and plays the guitar in the band; he is also the newest addition to the band.

“What the Chieftains have done for Irish traditional music, Battlefield Band are doing for the music of Scotland,” Billboard magazine wrote.

The band recently released its most recent album, “Dookin!” amidst a lot of success and feedback.

“…they remain quite simply the acme of their genre…These are musicians enjoying themselves doing what they do best, and should be essential listening for anyone interested in the way our traditions are being enhanced and expanded, without losing sight of their origins,” Gordon Potter, from Living Tradition, wrote.