Thought I tell you all how it went B)
Due to circumstanses I missed the free concert but this Berkenhage Stage Session was great, My friend The Squire who accompanied me said 'It was the best one yet'. Loads a Whistlers around, normal if You know this was A Whistle Stage (Stage is dutch for Workshop). Next time around it's going to be fiddlers again. I reckon there must have been 20 to 25 musisians playing all sorts of Instruments, among them I noticed, Guitars, Fiddlers, Bones, Spoons, Boxplayers, a Banjo player, an Accordioniste to name a few and I counted three Bodhran players. The first was
Dirk de Bleser who's playing I always enjoy... He has sucha smooth, easy effortless way of playing I can only admire. Then there was
Willem ???, In our after ses talk he mentioned he was playing for over 30 years, His first Bodhran he had to build himself as nobody ever heard about that kinda drum overhere and he did not find one anywhere..., Then there also was a
Lady player who I did not have the chance to chat with, but who also played some mean spoons by the way... A nice surprise was that when I arived I noticed a few members of the flanders Irish Trad band
'Green Jacket' who had joined in the Ses. If Your living in West or East Flanders and You dont know them, You must be living under a rock. They must be without any doubt the hardest working band around, playing/gigging all over the place all the time. While I'm at it, there next gig is on Sunday 11/nov/2007 10u30 at the Staf Versluys Centre here in Bredene (My home town) at an event called walking for Peace & Tolerance. The bands Bodhran player is
Jerry Steyaerd and more than worth checkin out. There web page is :
http://www.greenjacket.be/index.php.
So neadless to say I had a great time, I only hope that by next time my Loefke will have had her facelift so I can take her along... Rob???...).
I keep You all posted about the next session...
Greetz All,
PS. Raf (the BSS organizer) if You ever read this, Thanks for all the time and effort You put in all of this...