A Bard's Real World Blog
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North Texas Irish Festival 2004 Review

Saturday, I took my sister up to the North Texas Irish Festival for fun, frolic, and Irish merriment. It was an awesome day, despite exhaustion and wee setbacks.

My day began with a setback. Came downstairs to find my car was broken into. And boy was I pissed! Someone stole my trash can. And to add insult to injury, they didn't finish picking up all the empty coke bottles in the back seat! *sigh* How cruel?!

Actually, it looked they thought it was a purse. That's what I'm guessing at least.

I then drove up to my folks house, where we cleaned up the broken glass, duck taped the window, and drove my sister to Dallas.

I was running behind due to the break in, so we made *great* time on the route up there. Glad I didn't get a ticket. :-)

Hannah and I wandered around the festival so she could see all that was happening. Then we stopped off to listen to The Elders out of Kansas City. I remember hearing them on MP3.com way back whenever. Celtic rock. And they put on a great performance.

From there, we stopped off at the Clan Gunn booth to hang with the best clan in the world! :) Socialized a bit and I talked my sister into pulling out her flute and play some. I'm trying hard to get her more into the music. She loves it, but doesn't play it much... that I've heard. She hasn't yet figured out the whole session aspect of tunes. But then neither have I.

Course the theme of this year's NTIF was "Celtic Women". So from there, we watched, Aoife Clancy, daughter of one of the Clancy Brothers. Beautiful voice. That was followed by Brendan Nolan, another fine musician I first heard on MP3.com. I have at least one brilliant performance of a Robert Burns song, "Green Grow the Rushes".

After that, I had to head over to the Austin Celtic Association table for a wee bit. That was a rush. I'm really not as extroverted as I seem, but when it comes to things like this, it's total rush. I was having a blast handing out cards for the Austin Celtic Festival in November, giving away stickers and trying to sell merch. It's exhausting, but a Wonderful change from working in front of a computer.

I was also showing my sis some autoharp strum patterns. Though I took a break to play her "Wild Kitty". But what was really funny was when the song ended and Seamus Stout played "Wild Rover"! T'was too cool.

The table was tremendous fun. Had a couple people come up to us though, see our CDs, and say, "Cool, the Brobdingnagian Bards. I used to listen to them on MP3.com." I mentioned that was me, and one guy was like, "No! Are you serious?!" It was a trip for both of us, I reckon.

When we finished there, we caught a wee bit o'The Willow Band. Been wanting to see E.J.'s new band for a while and they did a fantastic job. Great sound. But the two I was really wanted to see were Ed Miller and Cathie Ryan.

Caught the end of Ed Miller's set. Heard a song I really need to learn. And Royce approached me and said, "You need to learn that song". I don't remember the name, but I'm gonna try and figure it out this week.

Oddly enough, when Hannah and I went to the Hospitality Room for food and drinks, Cathie Ryan was sitting there. But having never seen anything but her picture, I kinda missed the opportunity to chat and try to promote my Celtic MP3s Music Magazine. Ah well...

I did get some promotion done for it. Hope to feature some of the NTIF artists in the upcoming weeks. But then I also need to send out my next issue!

Well, Cathie Ryan is a Very charming person. She has a Great smile and beautiful voice. All the songs were outstandingly arranged. I need to take some lessons from her band on that aspect. Then again, I do enjoy many of the rougher versions that we do too, but I would like to emulate that style on occasion.

When that show ended, we headed over to the host hotel for the sessions. It was ten o'clock though and hadn't started up yet. So we chatted with friends a wee bit. Session finally started up, and I joined in for a few songs before I had to make the three hour drive home... fighting to stay awake.

Yes, overall this weekend helped me a lot to overcome some of my past grievances towards the fest. Definitely a lot o'fun. Hopefully, next year, I'll be able to spend a LOT more time at the festival, cuz it surely was a blast.

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Well if you have any questions, I'd be happy to answer those as well.