it’s too warm and I wasn’t going to do it this year but I suppose old habits and all that. ..
I am putting up pics from the Willie week as I go along. Didn’t do the fiddle concert, too warm inside and too nice outside but I got at least some shots so far. Just added the shots from the piping concert earlier tonight.
Fair play to all the pipers who played at the concert in almost tropical heat and humidity and still managed to make a fine job of it. Nollaig had a tune that needs instant learning, Seamus O Rochain played lovely and Cormac did beautiful stuff. In fact they were all great.
Nice music in the street from Simon Doyle and family during the afternoon too.
It’s great to see great pipers in action. One of my favourite pipers is Donncha Dwyer. He has a great rhythmic bounce to his playing and he makes a great set of pipes too!
Met with Peter again today at the afternoon piping recital. Donncha Dwyers pipes sounded fine although the heat affected the regs a little, Donncha had the situation under control. Fionntan Potts played fine and as Peter remarked he’s only been playing since October! We heard the Simon Doyle Band playing on the street. Great music then make, Simon on pipes and his daughters on fiddle, banjo and box. Very nice piping, carrying on the Johnny Doran legacy http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=8Alq4YZKtZw&feature=related
The weather has been almost unprecedented. It cooled a bit on Friday, which turned out a very pleasant day. It was a bit more bearable to be inside so I shot the lunchtime pipes recital with young Mark Rowsome and Seán Talty who was playing the first set he made himself. After that the singing concert, the harmonica recital and the concertina concert, all with scenes from the street in between. A good day and I uploaded a selection of today’s pics just now.
I found sean mckeown’s playing on the clip very complex - the ornamentation didn’t sound like anything I’ve heard before - where does that style come from does anyone know?
Brutally hot, so it was! I was going to walk into the fiddle concert and hit a wall of what felt like 40C! …turned right around! So hot that I nearly don’t remember what Cormac played!!!
I think it wasn’t as much the heat as the humidity during the first days of the week that was the problem. From Monday to Wednesday the hygrometer in the house was well up into the nineties, ninety-six at some point. The hot humid air condensating on the cold flagstones of the floor, making everything very damp and creating a few mouldy smelling corners too. Late on Wednesday humidity was starting to come down, it’s been in the 78-82 range since Friday.
Normally I am not a heat loving person but it’s been an awful long time since we had any stretch of weather like this and too much bleakness, dark days and summerless years aren’t very good for the body and the mind. It was a most welcome change.
It was a bit of a shame to miss the West Clare fiddle rhythms and Joe Cooley lectures but it was just too good to be indoors.
I added the last pics to the slideshow on Saturdaynight and made a few changes on Sunday. Unfortunately too many shots of pipers this time suffer from microphone touching instruments and/or players, where they do they were really unavoidable but they do spoil a few shots. Anyhow, that’s it for another year.
I found sean mckeown’s playing on the clip very complex - the ornamentation didn’t sound like anything I’ve heard before - where does that style come from does anyone know?
