Riverfront Irish Festival (June 13, 2009)

I originally posted this blog on MySpace the week after the festival, but couldn't get it to paste into Blogger on my mom's computer. So now that I have Internet access on my laptop at the college, Internet that doesn't suck, I am finally able to post it here. This makes me very happy. *bouncebouncebounce*

So here it is:

I started this blog yesterday on my laptop, and since the weather is so beautiful (there’s a wonderful thunderstorm outside my window) I thought I’d enjoy the rain and finish writing, since Cindy and Shawna are thirsting for blood and I’ve been feeling outlet-lessly creative lately.
I rearranged my room yesterday, but I don’t feel like talking about that, so I’ll move on to more interesting things.
I barely got sunburned at all at the Riverfront Irish festival, which I attended with Dad last weekend. I think, even without a brief review of my impressions of the day’s entertainment, that bit of achievement makes the day incredibly wonderful. I wore shorts and a tank top-sort of shirt, and remembered early on to put on sunscreen. As a result, I came out of it with only a minimum amount of redness. Yaybeans!!
As for the musicians, which you all know is the major attraction at one such festival, the first band we watched was That Irish Band, one that Dad and I had never seen before. We got there shortly after they started, and were thinking about grabbing a spot in the shade when I heard someone on stage announce that they were going to do a song “from a fantastic band called Great Big Sea”. At this I instinctively whooped, which drew the attention of several people, including some who weren’t standing on the stage. It’s amazing how I can be so horribly self-conscious in your average social gathering, but when I’m at a concert I abandon all thoughts of embarrassment and proudly support my favorite musicians (I also whooped when they mentioned Brigid’s Cross). So we sat and watched them do “Goin’ Up” and a few other songs that I do not wish to cudgel my brain into remembering. My impression was that they were certainly intent on making sure the audience had a good time, but a lot of their jokes felt staged. Also, I was not impressed with their bodhrán player; I firmly believe I could have done better. I was, however, impressed with the faster-than-the-speed-of-sound singing accomplished by… um… the guy on the right side of the stage. I don’t remember his name. I was also excited to hear that the band’s young fiddle player is a pupil of Paul Baker. She obviously recognizes astronomical skill when she sees it, and I wish her success. She can’t possibly avoid it if she’s learning from him.
We also had to watch the New Barleycorn, a very traditional duo that we’ve seen a few times before and that has a relatively dedicated following. They did “Whiskey in the Jar”, “Fields of Athenry”, “Danny Boy”, “Marion Bridge” and other such staples, but not, to my disappointment, “Black Velvet Band”. You would think I would get bored with them, two older gentlemen on stage with guitars, mandolins and banjos, but I find them to be quite entertaining. Onstage banter is important, as I mentioned before, and these guys have it down. Also, I think I like their music because it’s spontaneous yet refined, and their voices are powerful and blatantly Irish.
Another new band we checked out (at the behest of Rathkeltair frontman Neil Anderson), was The Kildares, yet another Irish rock ensemble. Despite their positive response from the crowd, I was mostly unimpressed. There was something very generic about them that put a damper on my enthusiasm – nothing in their performance seemed new and unique. Also, their guitarists and drummer received an unfair share of amplification, rendering the fiddler and the piper more or less impotent in affecting the band’s sound. I’m sure this was one major reason why they sounded so average to me. They didn’t sound bad, mind you, just… you know… whatever.
We finally saw an entire Rathkeltair performance, and I was delighted to find that the sound guys had evidently taken pity on us people with normal human ear canals and dialed down the decibel-age to something enjoyable and not painful. Rathkeltair is a band that Kevin urged us to see last year, and I like them well enough, so I’ll start out with my small bit of negativity, just to get it out of the way. Is it true that any rock band can become an “Irish” rock band just by adding a traditional instrument to their repertoire? Because that’s the message that I’m getting here.
Anyway, on to more positivity. The song I was hoping to hear, one that I heard last year and liked the sound of, was “Pound a Week Rise”, a song written by Ed Pickford in the 1960s expounding the evils of a government that promised Irish miners a raise but (naturally) didn’t come through after the miners gave them two years of hard, honest work. I recall from last year’s show (and the YouTube video that someone, bless his or her heart, uploaded), that Mr. Pickford was arrested for singing this song in public, which may be one reason for its popularity. I got my own video of it, and if I decide to trust Mom’s computer enough, maybe I’ll upload it next week. I am quite proud of it.
Overall, they had several memorable songs and I enjoyed their show, and so did Dad (moreso than I had expected). Quite possibly the highlight of the evening was when Neil and the Kildares' piper Matt Willis appeared onstage together in a double-team of bagpiping mayhem that had everyone riled up. Dad once expressed distaste and the rock sound of Needfire, but his strong fancy for songs that push powerfully driven melodies from traditional instruments and his intense preference for the atmosphere of a live show led him to love this performance, which seemed to last approximately as long as your standard human pregnancy. Neil and Matt must have lungs of steel to be able to play that long without passing out.
Naturally, though, the highlight of the festival for me was Brigid’s Cross, who did two shows on Saturday. Of course we didn’t miss either one. We got to the first one only 15 minutes early, as the New Barleycorn’s show at a different stage ran right up against Brigid’s Cross, and the tent and surrounding areas had already been filled by earlier-than-us-comers. So we stood off to the side Stage Paul and nonetheless enjoyed the show. They didn’t do “Twelve” (this is officially the first performance I’ve been to where they didn’t) but they did do “There Were Roses”, which I got a video of, many show staples, and two songs that I’d never heard. And we heard “Whiskey in the Jar” for the third time that day. Peggy sang “Johnny be Fair” sans “The Turnpike”, the instrumental that always ushers dancing on the part of Richie. Richie declared that he was too winded from his previous dance a few minutes earlier. Which I also got a video of. I love my new 4GB Sony Memory disk.
The second show was at the festival’s main stage, where Dad and I had scouted seats as soon as the previous band had left. It was raining by this time, and I was somewhat shivery from the waist down, still in shorts but with my Great Big Sea hoodie keeping my uppers warm. The weather was still pretty warm, but, you know, wet. The band started early for the sake of their soggy fans, and of course they played “Twelve”, and of course I screamed, and of course Richie said, “There she is”, and of course Paul made a joke. It’s just a thing we do.
The final video I wish to mention is of Richie doing his über-sexy Neil Diamond impression. It’s more than worth the drive to Riverfront to see, even if you don’t like Irish music.