Friday

As the first day of Different Drums at the festival proper, we were up and ready for business - our first order of the day was to get to the Trinity Dance Studio to Run through some pieces that we had done previously and which were to be included in the Show on the Saturday. Ellen and the gals n guys had been working really hard on the pieces and they came together very quickly indeed.

It's great to work with dancers, not just from the point of view of aesthetics but also from the pure energy they bring to the event. As we have been lucky to have been quite closely linked with Mark Howard and the Trinity instructors team for a number of years, it's all the more fun to see familiar faces and receive a warm welcome. We had our rehearsal in a stiflingly humid dance studio, no wonder they stay so thin! Because the rehearsal went so well we were packed up early and had a half hour before we had to leave, so it was over to the farmers market for some grub. I ate Lebanese as I'm a sucker for falafel & houmous which was lovely, check out the market if you're there!

Friday Gig - Our first gig at Irishfest has traditionally been to play on a mini stage at the gates just before opening (see image). Normally we've been inside the gates looking at all the people standing outside although this year we were just outside the gates and surrounded. First person we met and who welcomed us was Ed Ward, let's start at the top then eh? Doug and the lads set us up with PA and we were away. It's funny to play with people so close to you, literally a foot away and the early birds at the gate surely received a great view. We saw many people there who had been washed out at the Boerner Botanical Gardens the night before. It's hard to chat when you're playing, but plenty of nods, smiles and waves seemed to communicate the fact the they were happy to have made this wee gig after everyone's disappointment of the day before.

It's strange playing outside as you have the audience so close. They had to open the gates 15 minutes early because the crowd was starting to block the road. People in the carparks hundreds of yards away were able to hear the music and were hurrying to hear what was going on. With the gates open, our friendly familiar faces of 30 minutes all changed in a flash and we had a stream of people coming past as they went through the main gate. Plenty of nodding and smiling, photographs taken, some comments and the odd bit of one handed djembe playing for me as people wanted to shake hands LOL. If you have any photographs of the gate gig, please This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it and I'll add them to this blog.

Unfortunately the skies had darkened during our wee set and it had started to rain lightly - that really set the main weather tone for the Friday and Saturday of the festival but I don't think there were any dampened spirits. I didn't get to play any bodhran at this gig purely because of the shortened set.

Our gig over, we were free to enjoy the first day of the festival. There's something special for me (us, everyone) about being back in Irishfest, that first day particularly; a mixture of familiar faces & places and new ones, the happy friendly atmosphere and just the anticipation that the whole amazing weekend is stretching ahead. We stowed our gear at the Old Style where we met up again with our old friends Kevin & Joe King who manage the stage there. Again more welcomes and backslaps from those who were now old friends, even the nice chap in the cart who gave us a lift with our gear was a familiar face on a familiar route, awesome.

We spent a few hours wandering around, down to the Nova Scotia tent via the Tipperary where I stuck my head in to have a quick listen to Micheál O'Suilleabháin and Mel Mercier, on our wanderings we met up with Charlie from Stone Ring, a few of his kilted friends and we bumped into Craig and Diane Scotland, more of the Texas contingent! We hung around with the lads for a while tring to work out what we were going to do that evening and just generally dossing about.

Friday Evening

I had a conflict of interests for my evening schedule as I had different friends persorming. Rob, Chris and Charlie were on as the Tea Merchants in the village pub and Athas were in the dance tent. I decided to try and do both but didn't realise that the sets were so short and only really managed to see the Tea Merchants although I did catch Athas for a while after.

For me this was one of the gigs of the festival and really summed up the spirit of Ifest. The merchants were just awesome! I'd heard a couple of recordings last year when Rob had asked me to edit down some audio but nothing prepared me for the show. It amazed me how three people can create so much synergy. I had sessioned with the guys all week but the rehearsed tunes were absolutely rocking and gave everyone ample chance to showcase their skills. I could hear bluegrass and classical in Chris's playing, I heard Led Zepplin and AC/DC in Charlie's riffs and Rob drove the bus, very expertly. It was an amazing gig, including one set of tunes appropriately called 'The Big Set' that just lifted the roof off the place. The punters completely loved it and at the end there was a standing ovation and very, very prolonged applause. Well deserved lads.

Rob played one drum all night, one of his own Metloef melisonorous instruments, the PA was really sensitive to the bass and there was a great full sound. He's handy at those upside down top end noises and I really enjoyed being able to sit back and watch him in his environment. It's no wonder that he was teaching the advanced class at the Summer school, lovely tonality and sensitivity to the topography of the music.

I scooted off after the show to the Dance Stage and saw the last fifteen minutes of Athas' set. I found out that it's very different watching people play for Ceili or set dancers than a gig, as there's a gap between songs as the instructor explains and demonstrates, or at least that's what I saw. The sound wasn't great I have to say, Amy was playing well and enjoying herself but there was more attack than tone from her drum coming through the PA, and I tried several perspectives to get a better listen, even beside the desk, but I ended up settling for a seat with a good view which it turns out was beside Jeff's lovely girlfriend (Jenny?).

Standing in line to spend some beer tickets we realised that the Dave Munnelly band were about to start on the new Millar Stage - seems like an excellent place to go so off we went. They were amazing. We'd been on the same bill in the Middle East with them earlier this year but didn't really get to hear them because of scheduling. This time I heard them.

One thing that Irishfest does very well (I take my hat off to Doug, the overall Production manager) is the big stage presentation of celtic music. These can be enormous stages with 4 or 5 wee musicians sitting far apart and giving it loads, but the big sound and the sheer sensation of moving air sends chills up my spine. As a player my experience is that the on stage monitoring tends to be good which negates the distances between players although we do use IEMs in one ear.

The Dave Munnelly band are all of course consumate & renowned musicians and they were watertight in their presentation. Their arrangements were articulate and effective, such that they drew large roars from the good sized crowd at every change of dynamic. There was a jazzy swingy feel to much of the set, clearly coming from their 'Swing' CD. The whole swing theme was topped off by a jazz / tap dancer whose feet would challenge my hands for rhythmic complexity. They were joined by Andrew ? for a song or two, a great voice and a nice addition.

Ciaran Munnelly was playing flute and also a snare & cymbal. He used the RWE Hedwitschak & skewers throughout the set as far as I could tell. Ciaran's great bodhran solo drew massive appreciation from the audience. I enjoyed it tremendously although I was a little disappointed in the sound of his drum as it seemed to be all bottom end and no clear detail was audible. I mentioned this to Ciaran afterwards and it was much better in subsequent gigs. All the same, a tremendous gig, great response and what a surprise to hear the band playing the Tom Waits tune 'Picture postcards'. Lovely stuff

After the Munnelly's we caught up with Rob and the Tea Merchants back at the Village pub. Where we saw some of the set by Máirtín's Fuchsia Band. I greatly enjoyed the half hour of Fuchsia set that I saw, a mixture of songs, tales and general craic. Máirtín is completely the enigmatic character of the band, great fun, great musicianship, it was hard to leave, but...

We had been invited to join Gaelic Storm for a beer or two after their gig and left the Fuchsia gig early to make our way over to the Millar Stage where we were able to take up the tremendous vantage opportunity afforded from the VIP balcony for the last 20 minutes of the show. They had the whole audience take out their mobiles and bathed themselves in an eerie blue light.

Steve Wehrmeyer, the bodhran player and my Gemini drum counterpart at the 2004 scattering is sadly no longer with the band although Patrick did play some drum.

The image to the right shows the size of crowd that was there and the noise from them was tremendous, spine chilling stuff I tell you.

I was escorted back to the Park East by Tea Merchants' friends and family (I tell ya, they want to adopt me) and of course we made our way up to the roof to see what was going on. Guess what? a party! and guess what again? another 6am bedtime approached as we sang songs played tunes and hung out watching the craic unfold.

Saturday

 Early(ish)

A sluggish start to the morning as you might imagine, perhaps they're even becoming more sluggish as the week wore on but, hey, for me this is my first fest in 2 years and whilst there's not much craic at 9am, there is plenty to be had at 4am so hang the jetlag, let's live in the mid-Pacific timezone. :)

The band met at the Pabst Old Style stage at 12.00 to get our equipment together and to organise the timing for the day, The gig was scheduled for 5.15 and "see you back here at 4" was the basic plan. I went down to the Tea Merchants early gig and heckled from the back as Rob would expect me to. I darted back to the Old Style after and I spent a little while tying knots in my djembe behind the cyc at the Old Style to try and counter the very humid weather and the effect of the rain from the Boerner gig. Leahy's luck were on stage however I didn't really get to pay any attention (sorry guys) apart from timing my Tuning check strokes to co-incide with the pulse of whatever they were playing. After sometime I became aware of masses of wee curly heads starting to gather outside - Trinity, I thought! I've been behind the curtain at a Trinity show before and it's somewhere you don't want to be unless you have to. These kids and seniors fly from wing to wing and there is always a constant queue of the next ones ready to go on. I don't know how they co-ordinate it all but it always looks great from out the front, especially the wee baby ones with brilliant cheesy smiles that would part even the darkest of clouds - lovely - good for the soul that!

I had an hour or so and was on my way to the south side of the grounds when Mark Howard came up to me and handed me a parcel. It had been sent down by our friends Scott and Molly up in Boulder Junction, the box contained a Native American rattle made from a turtle, a real, but dead, turtle. I was admiring one like this in their shop, the Homestead a few days previously and I now have one of my very own for my collection of musical artefacts - awesome, thanks Molly. I caught a little bit of Athas at the dance stage then saw some Stone Ring at the pub stage.

I ventured into the Waltons tent to have a look around and I was disheartened to see such poor instruments. I know that Waltons is a major sponsor of the festival and I'd love to be proved wrong, but these drums just weren't capable of sounding like a bodhran, sorry.

To cheer myself up I went next door and visited with Simon O'Dwyer, that seemed to work and I wound my merry way back to the stage for the 4pm rendezvous.

Saturday Afternoon gig - 5.15pm Old Style Pabst stage.

We met up for our agreed 4pm rendezvous in the dressing room at the back of the stage and spent the next half hour finalising the setlist, running through cues for the dancers and just mentally getting ready for the concert. As soon as Trinity had cleared the stage we were straight on to get set up for our performance. The turnaround time for a band is about 30 minutes to include setup and soundcheck. It's a bit of pressure to get it done althoughit is definitely worse for other bands, but the ultra-professional crew at the old Style have always been great and there's never been a problem in making the start slot.

Because of working with the dancers from Trinity, we have to place the band further back from the front of the stage than we would otherwise like to do. For this reason we decided to try placing risers under us so that we would be a little more elevated. We understand that this positioning isn't the best for the audience but the dancers add so much to a performance that we hope you agree that it was the right move to make.

At one stage I looked around and saw Ellery and Ryan from Gaelic Storm standing to the side of the stage, I spoke briefly with them when I was off during Dolores' solo but they were only able to stay for a wee while and left shortly afterwards still, very cool to have them come check us out, many thanks guys.

The show was awesome and the crowd were extremely responsive which is always such a buzz for us. It is very heartening to start the gig and see the numbers grow during it, it means we must be doing something right :) If you were there, thank you for adding your voices. Your support makes the whole event effortless for us, a little piece of Milwaukee magic and yet again the Old Style did us proud. Thanks to Joe, Kevin and the crew for making it so.

After the performance we will always be found at one of the merchandising stalls. Playing always leaves us on a high, it's physically demanding and generates lots of adrenaline. It's a real buzz for us to meet with everyone, it is humbling to receive your oh-so-positive comments and to know the effect that we have on many people who speak with us.

We always end up spending much more time that we're supposed to at the stalls but it's fascinating to speak with everyone who has a story or who wants simply to know more about the band. Some people bought Cds without even seeing the band just because of the large queue. LOL, for us that's livin' it, lovin' it, lappin' it up!

Thank you again for buying the CDs, supporting us and, through CD sales, helping pay for the cost of bringing us to the US to perform for you. If you want to see us or any artist back again, I'd encourage you to This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it and feedback to them what worked for you.

Saturday - Post gig and evening

I had promised that I'd catch Athas at the dance stage and after packing up, I wandered over to see them, in my previous fest I'd never spent much time down at the southern end of the site so it was great to have a wander around there. I found the band and watched for a while, I think they were having fun just making the people jump about, but the whole thing apparently was very co-ordinated (it's much more structured that I give it credit for here! :)

I met up with Rob and Steff and next on our to-see list was Grada, one of the hotly recommended bands on the Aer Lingus stage. I hadn't seen them before, but going by Colin's performance at the session in the Park East I was certain that we'd enjoy the show, and that we did. We were joined by Paul Flynn from the NI Arts Council, some of the Athas guys and some of their friends, seemed to be a popular show then!

The band were great, lots of new tunes that I'd not heard before and loads of energy. Their bodhran player was Nicola the lead singer, a top end player but I couldn't make out what kind of drum she was playing. Nice tasty playing that complimented the music and lots of creativity in her choice of percussive noises beyond the usual skin sound. During the gig Paul F had asked Dolores to mind his phone because he had no room in his pockets. Do then went to the ladies room and we waited for her to return. The gig finished and our friends went on to their next gig whilst we waited for Do to return so Paul could get his phone and make his own arrangements. About an hour after she left I texted Do to ask if there was a very long queue or something and she replied "oops, I met Roy and I'm back in the Park East" LOL, eejit . (Paul did get his phone back but later that evening BTW) SO I wandered down to my next port of call. Gan Bua on the Village Pub stage.

Gan Bua are a great local (Chicago) band, last time I heard them Tim Fleming was playing guitar but this time there was a new lineup. Local legend Jackie Moran was playing bodhran as well as the occasional djembe lick and a second bodhran arranged as a kick drum. A great full sound and some lovely tasty playing from Jackie. The tent was inundated with bugs, the first time I'd seen that at the festival and they seemed to have a taste for my head, although I was assured that they'd not bite the wee bug-gers really started to annoy me. The gig was great though and superb playing throughout. Nice one guys.

By the end of their gig, the evening was winding down and on our way back to the vehicles to go back to the hotel, we decided to stop off and check out the last few numbers of the Munnelly set again. One of the elements of being a 'headline' act is that the last spot of the evening is yours, sounds great you might think, however it can be the graveyard shift and this was the unfortunate scenario at the Munnelly band's second gig. The crowd had dwindled, heading on their way home but there were still several hundred very enthusiastic supporters there and we added our not-insubstantial voices. Great gig again, tight band, Ciaran's drum sounded much better and my second time to see them in 2 days.

Back at the hotel I met Rob and crew wandering the corridors on a beer run having stored their drink in Do's room so we went up to the roof for a while but it was absolutely bunged to the gills and clearly a few people had been sampling the local and imported beers :). There were a couple of sessions going on but it was hard to get near them with the crowds. I did notice Maggie [?] from St Paul keeping the beat at one of them and I bumped into my old and dear friend Dave Draeger for the first time that fest, I think his hug nearly broke me in two. I also had a brief chat with Albert Alfonso.

Pat Roe and I figured that it may be time to see if we can gather a few at the 2nd floor landing which is another favourite session spot, it's also somewhat warmer. It took a while to come together as people drifted down from the roof but were were treated to some great tunes from the Athas guys. It's not often that I've seen Roy Arbuckle participate in a session but this was one of those times.

The session seemed to wind down at one point and several players, figuring that was the end, packed up and left (to their loss), it seemed that immediately they left (but co-incidentally), another group of players joined the group a banjo player, guitar player, Grada's Colin, Paul Flynn, Stephen from Diff Drums, Andreas Transo and others so it all started again. We were all to well aware that we had an 11.15 gig in the morning so we intended to be sensible but the music was so good that it was up on about 6 when I called it a night, the Russian folk-blues guy showed up wanting to do his thing and that was enough to send me to bed, for a couple of hours anyway.

Sunday

Sunday - Gigtime

Arising at 9am wasn't as difficult as it should have been. At home I'm a divil for the snooze button but here I just jumped up and into the shower, not wanting to run the risk of falling back to sleep. I learned the last few times that if I want a decent cup of coffee in the US, I need to bring my own. Not that good coffee can't be found but that hotels give you one sachet of weak-ass coffee, one sugar and one creamer whereas I need maybe three times that strength, sweetness and creaminess to even think about opening my eyes. I was prepared and within a half hour I was ready to go. Others with much more sleep, were a little less awake :)

11.15 is areally early slot in Milwaukee given the late night festivities, one could say cruel! I'm sure the organisers do it for punishment :). On the Sunday, it follows on from the big mass at the Stadium so there is a good crowd within the grounds by that time. This was the first day that the sun really came out and we had a beautiful day. Excuse the sunglasses when we were playing but the sun was reflecting off the beer booth roof right into my eyes for most of the gig.

It was nice to play on the Miller stage, man is that a big space! It was good to be there first in the day because we had more set-up time. Brian, Jeff and the tech crew guys helped us tremendously. We had a visitor backstage in the form of Kim Greyson, a drum builder from WI with whom I had shared some emails in the preceeding year, nice to meet you Kim and thanks for the photographs. We only had a few seconds to chat and then it was stage call, before we knew it, we were into the gig.

Part way through, my in ear monitors decided to fail on me, disaster! because I couldn't hear whistles, voices, guitar, all the landmarks that keep us tight. I borrowed Dolores' set and was able to get back to business. When Do was doing her solo slow air I decided that I'd switch on my camera and take some footage from the stage. I set it up near the monitor desk and you can see some of it below. When I was doing that the band all decided that we would come on and do a 'we are not worthy' for Dolores  ; Well, how often do you see a piper smile :)

The gig was great and again it was wonderful to see the audience grow despite it being so early in the day. Again we went to the merchandise stall and were delighted by the number and enthusiasm of the people who came to see us. Old friends, new ones and those who just loved the music "I've never seen or heard of you guys before but WOW!!" is a common phrase - thank you, it's great to know that we've managed to reach inside and have an impact.

Not content with performing once, I had been invited to guest with the Tea Merchants for their Sunday early gig as had Dolores, Simon O'Dwyer and Amy Richter. I arrived when the band were in full swing and found my friends has kept a seat for me. We sat and watched again as the Tea Merchants rocked the place, repeating their Friday night performance. I could see spare chairs and microphones and thought hmmm, maybe this is going to happen.

Toward the end of the show Rob motioned Dolores and me to the stage,sat us down and really there was no turning back. There was a chair for Simon but he was nowhere to be seen... 

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