Irish Connections Festival

So I spent this weekend sneaking over to the Irish Connections Irish Festival at its new site: The Irish Cultural Centre In Canton, MA.

This annual festival had been held at nearby Stonehill College, for ohIdon'tknow, maybe ten years. I thought, and wasn't the only one to think so, that in recent years the quality of the festival was declining. There is something depressing in thinking that Boston of all places does not play host to a decent, even world class, Irish festival. You have to go to Milwaukee?!

I love Stonehill College, but the festival, which has no direct relation to the college, was growing a bit light on decent musical offerings, and in fact, on any substantive Irish culture offerings, aside from draft Guinness in plastic cups and curry fries, wha?

The ICC in Canton is a beautiful site in its own right, and I have enjoyed several Gaelic Games and related events there in recent years. Not to mention concerts: saw the Saw Doctors there just recently. I thought the move to Canton would be super for a revival of the festival, and I was right. ;)

The weather was beautiful, sunny, dry and 70ish for the whole weekend. Friday night I had to go to see the most interesting tradish band playing right now: Lunasa. It grew fairly cold by their closing number, around 11:30, but they were brilliant as usual. (And I will add, it was nice to see acts go on at the correct time. Stage management has been a disaster in recent years. Last year, I thought Gaelic Storm was either going to be arrested or get into a brouhaha with Seven Nations, due to the fact that they were forced to go 40 minutes late, and then were told they'd have to get off at the scheduled time. What's that, a five minute set?

Saturday I brought the kids and we spent most of the time in the carnival area. And John Doyle was playing all over the place that day! Arrg.
[I only know how to play session guitar because of John Doyle, and I'm sure I'm not alone. Yes, another drop D convert. Several months back he came to the Blackthorne Tavern, where I've run the session for the past five years. He played with Liz Carroll, and it was a great show. I never do this sort of thing, but I got him to sign my Martin. What a giddy thing to do. How unfortunate. . . ]

I did manage to pry the girls away from the Berry Whirl and the Super Slide long enough to catch a bit of John playing. Then it was back to Kidsville. BUT-

I had my guitar across my back, thanks to a last minute gig bag purchase. Felt a little funny with it on, since I wasn't actually playing at the festival, but I knew Amy would have her fiddle with her, and the email invite to the festival told musicians to bring their instruments, so . . . I ended up meeting with Amy and her family, and we decided what the hey, we would just sit on a bench and play a few tunes, and see what happens. And we did.

The first two guys to approach with name tags made us nervous, but they passed by without comment, so we relaxed and played a half hour set, much to the delight of passersby.

It was liberating just not to worry about it, but do it. I did feel kind of queasy at the thought of having Brian O'Donovan, the organizer, and host of Celtic Sojourn on WGBH, come by and observe us. Or one of our musician friends that were playing there see us.

Queasy because maybe they'd think we were slumming: Couldn't get a gig this year, so you're resorting to illegal busking, huh?

But, instead, a camera crew chanced by and filmed the better part of two sets and a song. I don't know if it was a documentary for the festival, or a local cable station. Surprise, here's us, playing the festival!