Last weekend Festival at Southwell!

The Gate to Southwell festival is a relatively new Folk Festival based on an old tradition. The Morris Dancers will traditionally dance all the way from Nottingham to Southwell (half hour drive, several hours dancing). They still do it, but now with a little more variety on the music end. We did three sets and three workshops, with warm reception. Some of the highlights were... Hat Fitz and Cara Robinson (Aus./Ireland), The Butler Family, John Otway and Wild Willy Barrett http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wkYOZyNocrw (you gotta see this) and of course the Festival of Ales that was going on all weekend. (over 76 kegs)

Ales of the weekend:

Rupert's War Dog
WPA
Lincoln Best
Gatehopper
Hopadoodledoo
Brillsteam
Pauper's Ale
Gardner's Tap
Father Hawkins
Magic Mild
The Monkey

Live @ The Institute! A diversion around a Roman tollbooth, Kelvedon is a beautiful old town with a rich history. We stayed in a 600 year old house, (with ghosts, of course!) and markings to ward off witches (?? hope it worked). James and Tony run a regular series of concerts hosting great acoustic acts from all over including our friend Cara Luft! We were lucky to share the night with Sam Sallon, beautiful songwriter and guitar player from England. Another surprise highlight was listening to Tony's CD in the car on our drive to Southwell...

Ale of the Day: Brewer's Gold is made here, James works for the brewery, which also makes a couple of other nice ones... Amarillo and Essex Boys Bitter

"What's Cookin?" Curry is what.... Leytonstone at the North Star for the What's Cookin show and back to our favourite Indian buffet at The Eatery. This show always gets a great crowd thanks to Stephen Ferguson and his antics. Double bill with The Black Oil Brothers from Chicago! A raucous night and good fun. While we've been in London we've been staying with Tricia and Uday, our home away from home, we were glad to enjoy this show with them!

Ale of the Day: Brewer's Gold

The Old Queen's Head. A beautiful upstairs acoustic room in Islington. Supported by Danni Nichols solo acoustic and The Hi and Lo, Nick on drums, guitar and harmonica at the same time! Crazy. Some friends from Fire in the Mountain came down, and a great time was had. Thanks to Owl for putting it together!

London times!

Back to the big city and The Workshop, a little underground acoustic music spot, underneath the Road Trip Bar in Shoreditch. This was one of our smallest crowds, but favourite shows, mostly for the folks we met! We almost didn't do this show, but we were glad we did! The other artists on the bill were great, Dean Johansen from The Human Condition (USA), Nathalie Nahai, and Jenny & Stuff ("Stuff" were Joe and Bella Chipperfield on guitar and harp). Great sounds and great people.

Pint of the Day: We stuck with Guinness, not a good selection on tap here. We also were missing Ireland.

Hello Brighton, we're back!
Had to make a visit to one of our favourite spots from last year, The Greys Pub in Brighton! It was great to see our friends Chris and Jill who we met last year. They even came all the way to Canada to see a hockey game a few months ago! Solid folks! The Greys is a lovely little pub with a good reputation for good music every monday night. It was here that Tyler rekindled his love for scampi fries and we were well taken care of by Ben and Joe. We even watched a bit of Stanley Cup Action.

Ale of the day: Landlord

Fire in the Mountain!

We left Ireland early in the morning and got on the Dun Laoghaire ferry to Holyhead. The sun that had been shining all week over Ireland started to make way to rain and we were worried for our night of camping ahead in Wales. Fortunately it was out again by the time we were making our way through the windy mountain roads of the Welsh countryside. We made a quick stop at Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch and then wound our way up to the Fire in the Mountain Festival. We passed sheep and castles and rocks and hills and more sheep and more rocks and more castles and the roads got tinier and the hedges got higher and the hills got steeper, the drive seemed to go on for hours. We thought we had left civilization for good when our gps finally said "you have reached your destination". We stopped and noticed some tents out in a field and as we wandered in, we found ourselves on an old farm with ancient buildings creating a magical village housing a stage, a pub, and barbecue/kitchen. All kinds of folks were dancing, enjoying the music, eating, drinking and jamming as we sat stunned on the steps of the old farmhouse.

We met Joe Buirski and Owl who got us sorted out and we jumped up on stage for a 10pm set. The crowd was primed for dancing and madness and with a little help from some Irish medicine, we brought a rousing set. The crowd had an amazing energy... there was wild dancing, hearty singing and the even the biggest group hug I've ever seen! We ended off with a bunch of folks from the other bands joining us on stage for "drunken sailor", not sure how that happened.

Ale of the Day: Station (Welsh)

To the Castle!!!

Well, unfortunately Don Giovanni had dibs on the castle in Lismore, but we had a lovely spot at the Ballyrafter Hotel! Lismore is a historic and beautiful town on the river which is a host to many festivals, including an opera festival which was in progress when we arrived. We were absolutely spoiled by our hosts John and Anne.

We had a great show with Pat and Eileen and Yvonne from Cork. Eileen and Yvonne both play fiddle in a band called The Critters, and Pat is a clever and engaging songwriter. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g2JCJrFDni4
have a look!

The audience was full of interesting characters, full of craic, as they say. We had a bit of criticism though... One audience member told us that our hats were all wrong. He said that Mark's hat made him look like a dope dealer and Sean looked like he was selling livestock. I'm pretty sure the guy liked the music though.

Even the star of the Opera came down to check it out after her performance and bought some CD's! She especially liked the bluegrass harmonies, she said.

Last night in Ireland : Guinness and Jameson

To the South! First our most "intimate" show of the week at Colfer's Pub in Carrick-on-Bannow. We left the sound system behind for this one and had one of our favourite performances sitting on some barrels in the corner for an appreciative audience of 6! John (the pub owner) is an award winning harmonica player and joined us on a few tunes, what a treat! If you ever find yourself at Colfer's, ask him to play Mason's Apron!

The next morning, we had a beach walk and breakfast in the Irish sunshine before our short drive to Lismore.

Guinness, Guinness and more Guinness... It really is better in Ireland.

Everywhere we go there are ghosts! Tonight we played in an old church where Patrick Bronte (father of Emily and Charlotte) had preached his first sermon. Now it has been de-consecrated, I guess you would say, and it is the perfect spot for acoustic concerts. It is also a perfect spot for ghosts. Walking into the adjoining schoolhouse sent a chill up my spine, and hearing the story of Squire Hawkins, the black magic practitioner who is buried in the church graveyard was quite a trip. The story goes that when the evil Squire Hawkins died, none of the churches in town would bury him so they had to take the hearse up the hill to this one, but even the horses didn't want to take him and refused to pull. Yikes!

And... we're back to Guinness

That brings us up to now... We are in Cookstown now, in the North, sitting in the most beautiful country house owned by Arne and Sharon Loughrin, where last night we played for a living room full of friendly folks. Some jamming ensued as seems to be usual and we all enjoyed Arne and Sharon's warm hospitality. We woke up this morning to sunshine on the Irish countryside and we'll head to Rathfriland this afternoon.

Spirit of the day: it's a secret

The Rocky Road to Dublin...

A late morning and a quick stop at Tullamore on our way to Dublin City! We performed at Whelans Pub opening for No Crows, a crew of accomplished musicians from Sligo. Two fantastic fiddle players, guitar, cello, mandolin and bass. www.nocrows.net. We really enjoyed their show, and now are enjoying their CD in the car.

Next day... Guinness factory. The highlight of the tour was Dave from Dublin, who we met in the lineup for the free pint. We sat down with him and he crammed more stories into a pint of Guinness than we thought was possible, including a Canadian story made up to show us how to do it. Full of craic, he was.


Stout of the Day: We can't get away from it.