(no subject)
I am currently trying to recover from yet another spectacular weekend spent at Milwaukee Irishfest. It was so warm and sunny over the weekend that my forearms and the back of my neck got significantly sunburned.
ithiriel
got toasted a little also. Once again, this year, my friends and I attended the festival Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. Since
birder2
managed to avoid double-booking herself for Irishfest weekend as she did last year, she was able to join us again as usual this year. Our friends Bill, the fiddle player from St. Louis, Lisa from Evanston, and
tigertoy
joined us again this year giving us a maximum number of 6 people in our party.
braider
was interested in joining us this year, but unfortunately, she had a family commitment this weekend and couldn't make it. Maybe next year! Our house isn't that big, so finding accommodations for everyone was a bit of a challenge, but we managed it. Lisa came up from Evanstion the Sunday before the festival and spent the week with us so she could attend educational classes offered by Irishfest during the week leading up to the festival. She took classes in bodhran (irish drum) and set dancing.
tigertoy
and
birder2
got into town too late to attend the Festival Friday night but Bill did make it early enough and met us on the grounds.
The music on Friday night was incredible. It started at 4:00 PM with Blarney, a local 3 man Irish pub band that does typical Irish folk music similar to the Irish Rovers, with good harmony vocals and great stage presence. Next was Solas, one of my all time favorite Celtic bands. They have a wonderfully sophisticated take on Celtic music, doing a kind of celtic fusion with elements of pop and/or jazz thrown in. This was the first time they've been at Irishfest since I started going, so it was a great treat for me to see them. For me, they were the musical highlight of the weekend. After that was Eileen Ivers and her band, Immigrant Soul. She used to be the fiddle player with Riverdance. She is one of the hottest, most high energy fiddlers I've ever seen, in the same class as Liz Carroll and Donell Leahy. Her band didn't have any new material from the last time I saw them a few years ago and their performance was not quite as "high energy" as the last time I saw them, but it was still very good. After that was a new Scottish basnd called Lau who were OK followed by another new Scottish band called Bodega who we very good. Bill liked them well enough to get one of their CDs. Lau was playing on the Tiperary stage near the Tiperary tea room so I was able to get my traditional slice of McFest cream cheesecake (made with Bailey's Irish Cream) and cup of hot tea while listening to them.
Saturday started out with Atlantic Wave, a decent local band that does Cape Breton style Celtic music. After that, there was a bit of a hole in our schedule in which there weren't any bands that we especially wanted to see, so we spent the time checking out the numerous merchants selling anything and everything Celtic. I managed to restrain myself and only got 4 CDs this year.
ithiriel got some very nice Celtic themed jewelery and t-shirts. Everybody found things they liked and probably spent more money than they should. It's hard not to when you find so many wonderful things you can't find anywhere else all in one place and the quality of the items offered is so high. The find I'm most pleased with was at Waltons, a major music supply store from Ireland that always has a huge display of songbooks and instruments for sale at Irishfest. They usually mostly have bodhrans for sale, along with some cool percussion toys, but this year, they had a fantastic selection of penny whistles in an amazing range of keys. They had some smaller whistles at 3 for $10.00 and larger, better made, all aluminum whistles for $15.00 each. I got 6 whistles in total. When I went back to Walton's on Sunday, wanting to pick out one or two more whistles, they only had 3 of the nice aluminum whistles left out of 3 boxfulls. I spent the evening on the North end of the grounds checking out the Leinie's Rock stage. First up was Seven Nations, a fairly hard Celtic rock group I've heard before. They are a favorite of my friend Joe, who is an awesome drummer, who helped me out a few years ago by performing with me when I did a concert at Windycon. As I expected, I saw Joe at the concert and introduced him to
ithiriel. She is interested in learning to play bodhran. so we can do music together. He had his bodhran with him so afterwards, he was able to give her some tips. After that was the "Screaming Orphans" an amazing all girl Celtic Pop-Rock group who put on a wonderful show. They did covers of songs by the Violent Femmes (as a tip of the hat to Milwaukee) and Guns and Roses, as well as rock versions of several traditional Celtic tunes and a handful of their own original songs, which were quite good. In addition, they had excellent stage presence and had a lot of fun bantering with the audience. The music wasn't excessively loud or harsh and so was quite enjoyable. I would recommend people check them out. The last act of the night on the rock stage was the "Peat Bog Fairies", an amazingly diverse and eclectic 8 man all instrumental Celtic rock band. Their line-up included keyboards/synthesizer, electric guitar and bass, fiddle, drum kit, bagpipes, trumpet, and alto saxophone. I got 2 of their CDs.
Sunday, our little group started to break up. Lisa,
tigertoy and
birder2 all left after breakfast, leaving Bill,
ithiriel and myself to head down to the festival together. Bill drove himself so he could leave directly from the festival. We got to the grounds in time to catch some of Baal Tinne, a traditional Celtic band from the Chicago area. We ran into a couple of friends from our local Filk group at Baal Tinne, and encountered a couple more over the course of the day. After that, we caught the Barra MacNeils, one of my favorites and the Fuchsia Band later in the afternoon. After that ithiriel and I enjoyed a performance by the Trinity Irish Dancers and then caught a little bit of the Saw Doctors before heading over to the Miller Lite Stage at 6:30 PM to see Solas again. I didn't really enjoy the Saw Doctors. They are a straight up hard rock band from Galway who incorporate a number of cultural references to their hometown into their lyrics that were quite lost on me. They played so loud that it was right on the edge of being seriously painful and the lead guitarist appeared to be more impressed with himself than Bono. They seem to have quite a following but I can't recommend them. The last act we say was another rock band called Furrey Village. They were ok, if somewhat uninspired and very eclectic in their selections. They did rock versions of several traditional Celtic tunes with a few licks of Deep Purple's Smoke on the Water and a rock version of the John Denver song "Grandma's Feather Bed" thrown in for good measure. There were 10 people in the band so my theory is that there is a village in county Galwayy somewhere called Furrey and the band incorporates the entire population of the vilage. After that was "the scattering", a jam session with over a hundred musicians on stage from some of the bands that performed at the fest that ended with a wonderful fireworks display. Joannie Madden from Chrish the Ladies led the final jam session. Apparently she came to enjoy the festival without the rest of her band, which was pretty cool. We got Bill onto the freeway and on his way home about 11:30 PM and then headed home to crash ourselves. Am starting to feel lest tired now but will feel better by the weekend. That's all for now. Hopefully the weather will co-operate next year as it did this year and we will all get together again and have another wonderful time.
ithiriel
got toasted a little also. Once again, this year, my friends and I attended the festival Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. Since
birder2
managed to avoid double-booking herself for Irishfest weekend as she did last year, she was able to join us again as usual this year. Our friends Bill, the fiddle player from St. Louis, Lisa from Evanston, and
tigertoy
joined us again this year giving us a maximum number of 6 people in our party.
braider
was interested in joining us this year, but unfortunately, she had a family commitment this weekend and couldn't make it. Maybe next year! Our house isn't that big, so finding accommodations for everyone was a bit of a challenge, but we managed it. Lisa came up from Evanstion the Sunday before the festival and spent the week with us so she could attend educational classes offered by Irishfest during the week leading up to the festival. She took classes in bodhran (irish drum) and set dancing.
tigertoy
and
birder2
got into town too late to attend the Festival Friday night but Bill did make it early enough and met us on the grounds.
The music on Friday night was incredible. It started at 4:00 PM with Blarney, a local 3 man Irish pub band that does typical Irish folk music similar to the Irish Rovers, with good harmony vocals and great stage presence. Next was Solas, one of my all time favorite Celtic bands. They have a wonderfully sophisticated take on Celtic music, doing a kind of celtic fusion with elements of pop and/or jazz thrown in. This was the first time they've been at Irishfest since I started going, so it was a great treat for me to see them. For me, they were the musical highlight of the weekend. After that was Eileen Ivers and her band, Immigrant Soul. She used to be the fiddle player with Riverdance. She is one of the hottest, most high energy fiddlers I've ever seen, in the same class as Liz Carroll and Donell Leahy. Her band didn't have any new material from the last time I saw them a few years ago and their performance was not quite as "high energy" as the last time I saw them, but it was still very good. After that was a new Scottish basnd called Lau who were OK followed by another new Scottish band called Bodega who we very good. Bill liked them well enough to get one of their CDs. Lau was playing on the Tiperary stage near the Tiperary tea room so I was able to get my traditional slice of McFest cream cheesecake (made with Bailey's Irish Cream) and cup of hot tea while listening to them.
Saturday started out with Atlantic Wave, a decent local band that does Cape Breton style Celtic music. After that, there was a bit of a hole in our schedule in which there weren't any bands that we especially wanted to see, so we spent the time checking out the numerous merchants selling anything and everything Celtic. I managed to restrain myself and only got 4 CDs this year.
ithiriel got some very nice Celtic themed jewelery and t-shirts. Everybody found things they liked and probably spent more money than they should. It's hard not to when you find so many wonderful things you can't find anywhere else all in one place and the quality of the items offered is so high. The find I'm most pleased with was at Waltons, a major music supply store from Ireland that always has a huge display of songbooks and instruments for sale at Irishfest. They usually mostly have bodhrans for sale, along with some cool percussion toys, but this year, they had a fantastic selection of penny whistles in an amazing range of keys. They had some smaller whistles at 3 for $10.00 and larger, better made, all aluminum whistles for $15.00 each. I got 6 whistles in total. When I went back to Walton's on Sunday, wanting to pick out one or two more whistles, they only had 3 of the nice aluminum whistles left out of 3 boxfulls. I spent the evening on the North end of the grounds checking out the Leinie's Rock stage. First up was Seven Nations, a fairly hard Celtic rock group I've heard before. They are a favorite of my friend Joe, who is an awesome drummer, who helped me out a few years ago by performing with me when I did a concert at Windycon. As I expected, I saw Joe at the concert and introduced him to
ithiriel. She is interested in learning to play bodhran. so we can do music together. He had his bodhran with him so afterwards, he was able to give her some tips. After that was the "Screaming Orphans" an amazing all girl Celtic Pop-Rock group who put on a wonderful show. They did covers of songs by the Violent Femmes (as a tip of the hat to Milwaukee) and Guns and Roses, as well as rock versions of several traditional Celtic tunes and a handful of their own original songs, which were quite good. In addition, they had excellent stage presence and had a lot of fun bantering with the audience. The music wasn't excessively loud or harsh and so was quite enjoyable. I would recommend people check them out. The last act of the night on the rock stage was the "Peat Bog Fairies", an amazingly diverse and eclectic 8 man all instrumental Celtic rock band. Their line-up included keyboards/synthesizer, electric guitar and bass, fiddle, drum kit, bagpipes, trumpet, and alto saxophone. I got 2 of their CDs.
Sunday, our little group started to break up. Lisa,
tigertoy and
birder2 all left after breakfast, leaving Bill,
ithiriel and myself to head down to the festival together. Bill drove himself so he could leave directly from the festival. We got to the grounds in time to catch some of Baal Tinne, a traditional Celtic band from the Chicago area. We ran into a couple of friends from our local Filk group at Baal Tinne, and encountered a couple more over the course of the day. After that, we caught the Barra MacNeils, one of my favorites and the Fuchsia Band later in the afternoon. After that ithiriel and I enjoyed a performance by the Trinity Irish Dancers and then caught a little bit of the Saw Doctors before heading over to the Miller Lite Stage at 6:30 PM to see Solas again. I didn't really enjoy the Saw Doctors. They are a straight up hard rock band from Galway who incorporate a number of cultural references to their hometown into their lyrics that were quite lost on me. They played so loud that it was right on the edge of being seriously painful and the lead guitarist appeared to be more impressed with himself than Bono. They seem to have quite a following but I can't recommend them. The last act we say was another rock band called Furrey Village. They were ok, if somewhat uninspired and very eclectic in their selections. They did rock versions of several traditional Celtic tunes with a few licks of Deep Purple's Smoke on the Water and a rock version of the John Denver song "Grandma's Feather Bed" thrown in for good measure. There were 10 people in the band so my theory is that there is a village in county Galwayy somewhere called Furrey and the band incorporates the entire population of the vilage. After that was "the scattering", a jam session with over a hundred musicians on stage from some of the bands that performed at the fest that ended with a wonderful fireworks display. Joannie Madden from Chrish the Ladies led the final jam session. Apparently she came to enjoy the festival without the rest of her band, which was pretty cool. We got Bill onto the freeway and on his way home about 11:30 PM and then headed home to crash ourselves. Am starting to feel lest tired now but will feel better by the weekend. That's all for now. Hopefully the weather will co-operate next year as it did this year and we will all get together again and have another wonderful time.