Great line up again!
James Keane ( brother of Sean Keane fiddler with the Chieftains ) is the Irish box player this year. Should be mighty because James has played with the best of the best including Joe Cooley!
http://www.internationalaccordionfestival.org/site2005/schedule-web.htm
Do you mean those little accordians affectionately known as “boxes” or a full fledged accordian as seen in Zydeco? Or all of the above.
Probably both, Fly. A look at the photos page on toasty’s link shows 50% piano accordions, with the rest being Melodeons by the looks.
James Keane plays melodeon (aka button accordion, aka button-box)…
http://www.jameskeane.com/
Is that a Castagnari he’s playing I wonder, for no particular reason at all?
Oh. You mean actually check out the link before asking stupid questions.
Yeah. I see now. Wish I could go. They’ll probably be some great music.
I wish I could go. There’s a lot of people on that list that look like they would be great.
I got into a real mix-up. A piano accordion player named Jimmy Keane and a band named bohola came to Des Moines a few years ago and we really enjoyed them alot—but I couldn’t remember a whole lot about them at this point. I was thinking the James Keane mentioned above by toasty was the same person but nothing seemed quite same on the description on the festival lineup so after searching aroudnI finally figured out that they are different people. I pass up a chance to go to Chicago once in a while, but I’m starting to realize if the timing were right I could hear some great music.
Le Vent du Nord is a wonderful high enerty band from Quebec. I wish they’d come here again.
Bohola was at the festival in Goderich this year. Jimmy Keane shared one stage with a couple of banjo players and a young female accordianist who was very nearly as good as he was and infinitely more charming.
Le Vent du Nord was here in Cincinnati last September for our Celtic World Festival. They were FANTASTIC - I’ve never seen such energy, and they really had the crowd involved. I had never heard “Quebecois” music before, and we have fallen in love with the CD we bought - we’ve about worn it out!
If you ever have a chance to see them - DO SO!
Hey, I thought Jimmy Keane was pretty charming! 
Actually he was working so hard that he was just dripping—I think the auditorium was pretty warm. And then he taps his feet really vigorously to make percussion sounds and then just the work of playing that huge accordion. He was wearing some sort of back brace as well. It looked like it was physically pretty challenging.