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kaitouWoo! Over the weekend I went to the Dublin Irish Festival in Dublin Ohio with my mom and aunt. OMG (should that be O'MG?) I had SO much fun. This is definitely going to be a tradition from now on. The Dublin festival is the second biggest one in America; and this year they had 100,000 people. Because there were so many awesome things, and I'm incapable of stringing them together in an interesting story like many on my flist, I'm just going to give you the highlights. Careful though, some of the links start right into music and videos, so are not worksafe.
Gaelic Storm rocks. We went and saw them every time they played. And every time it was a fantastic show.
Seven Nations is likewise awesome. They played on Sunday with the Columbus Symphony...which was interrupted by a huge rainstorm and we were all evacuated to the Rec Center. We shouldn't have been allowed to take our beers out of the festival (or a Mike's hard lemonade in my case) but no one said anything, so we sat underneath a beautiful Celtic Knot stained glass display at the rec center and enjoyed ourselves.
They had a whiskey tasting by one of nine whiskey masters in the world, which was awesome enough that I went twice. We tried four kinds of Bushmills and two kinds of Johnny Walker. I like it neat the best, but he gave us some really neat ideas for some cocktails I'd like to try someday.
I went to a workshop on learning how to draw the knotwork that made a lot more sense than any of the books I have. I'm going to have to do more of it soon. They had workshops on all kinds of things, and I wish I could have done more of them.
There was also a recreation of a tenth century Irish Village that was more impressive than I would have thought. With my love of ancient tech, you KNOW I got a kick out of the guy working the lathe.
On Friday night we were having trouble finding the pickup for our shuttle back to the hotel, but my Aunt is a consummate shmoozer. She wandered up to a random car in a parking lot, and the next thing we knew we had a ride back to our hotel with a really nice old man named Joe, who's been one of the festival organizers since it began. He told us that when the festival started it was held on the tennis courts at the park and had a total of 500 people.
A group called Step Crew made their big debut at the festival, and they may be the single coolest thing I saw. They are a group of 8 (?) fiddle players that are also fantastic step dancers. One of them is from Seven Nations, and I assume that the others are from other bands, but I don't know for sure. They were fabulous and really funny. I also had to give major love to one guy who had the most fantastically horrible outfit I have ever seen. Black pants with a white belt that had a Canadian flag for a buckle, a yellow, black and orange plaid shirt, a baby blue, yellow and lime green striped tie, and orange & brown striped socks. And yet, it somehow worked for him. I wanted to take him home with me.
Homeland, one of our local bands, was playing, and I got my aunt to go watch them. She really enjoyed them, and I hope she keeps them in mind for next year's Kansas City Irish Fest (she's on the committee). I thought I saw![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
rlanto there, but when I tapped her on the shoulder, it was someone else altogether!
We saw another band called Brigid's Cross, which was shooting a video for You Tube. It doesn't look like it's up yet, but when it is, I'll let you know, since I'll probably be in it!
Gaelic Storm rocks. We went and saw them every time they played. And every time it was a fantastic show.
Seven Nations is likewise awesome. They played on Sunday with the Columbus Symphony...which was interrupted by a huge rainstorm and we were all evacuated to the Rec Center. We shouldn't have been allowed to take our beers out of the festival (or a Mike's hard lemonade in my case) but no one said anything, so we sat underneath a beautiful Celtic Knot stained glass display at the rec center and enjoyed ourselves.
They had a whiskey tasting by one of nine whiskey masters in the world, which was awesome enough that I went twice. We tried four kinds of Bushmills and two kinds of Johnny Walker. I like it neat the best, but he gave us some really neat ideas for some cocktails I'd like to try someday.
I went to a workshop on learning how to draw the knotwork that made a lot more sense than any of the books I have. I'm going to have to do more of it soon. They had workshops on all kinds of things, and I wish I could have done more of them.
There was also a recreation of a tenth century Irish Village that was more impressive than I would have thought. With my love of ancient tech, you KNOW I got a kick out of the guy working the lathe.
On Friday night we were having trouble finding the pickup for our shuttle back to the hotel, but my Aunt is a consummate shmoozer. She wandered up to a random car in a parking lot, and the next thing we knew we had a ride back to our hotel with a really nice old man named Joe, who's been one of the festival organizers since it began. He told us that when the festival started it was held on the tennis courts at the park and had a total of 500 people.
A group called Step Crew made their big debut at the festival, and they may be the single coolest thing I saw. They are a group of 8 (?) fiddle players that are also fantastic step dancers. One of them is from Seven Nations, and I assume that the others are from other bands, but I don't know for sure. They were fabulous and really funny. I also had to give major love to one guy who had the most fantastically horrible outfit I have ever seen. Black pants with a white belt that had a Canadian flag for a buckle, a yellow, black and orange plaid shirt, a baby blue, yellow and lime green striped tie, and orange & brown striped socks. And yet, it somehow worked for him. I wanted to take him home with me.
Homeland, one of our local bands, was playing, and I got my aunt to go watch them. She really enjoyed them, and I hope she keeps them in mind for next year's Kansas City Irish Fest (she's on the committee). I thought I saw
rlanto there, but when I tapped her on the shoulder, it was someone else altogether!We saw another band called Brigid's Cross, which was shooting a video for You Tube. It doesn't look like it's up yet, but when it is, I'll let you know, since I'll probably be in it!
