Pogey

Well, I have (somewhat reluctantly) returned from the land of the Irish. (No, not Ireland...just the Great American Irish Festival!) It was a wonderful 3 days...we ended up with great weather even though the forecast called for rain the entire weekend. My only complaint? It's not long enough! I could spend a week there dancing to my favorite bands, watching rugby, Gaelic football and Irish dancing, checking out the vendors, and eating lots of fatty, salty, unhealthy (and therefore totally delicious!) festival food!

One of my favorite bands that I saw this weekend is Pogey, a group of 5 young lads from Nova Scotia. It was their first appearance at GAIF and they were very well received...hopefully they'll be back again for GAIF 2010. As soon as they finished their first set I snagged one of their CDs (sadly their fiddler, Colin, just recently joined the group and isn't on either of their CDs but they are working on a new one which is tenatively scheduled for a spring release) and was first in line to get it autographed...and they remembered me after that one meeting! Unlike a lot of artists that spend the majority of the festival in the VIP tent, their tour bus, or a hotel room, these guys wandered around the fairgrounds and every time one of them saw me (it's not a very big fairgrounds so you're bound to run into people more than once!) they'd smile and wave. My WONDERFUL friend Cindy volunteered at the festival and snuck me behind the barricade to get a pic with the guys after their last set on Sunday morning...they were all too happy to comply.

Now, I may be biased, but in addition to being very talented musicians, and the nicest bunch of guys you could ever hope to meet, I think they're pretty darn cute too! Don't you agree? (Seriously. Don't you just want to take them home with you? ♥ )