I Heart Faces week 30 - My Story in Photos

Week 30 - My Story In Photos: "The Summer Edition"

Ahhhh, it feels so good to be preparing an I ♥ Faces post once more! I skipped out last week because I was busy getting my Irish on at the Great American Irish Festival. And because the theme was "beach" and I can't even remember the last time I went to the beach. It was long before I had a digital camera, I know that much, so I don't have any good beach pics.

So, here's my story. I'm not much of a summer person (which explains my lack of beach time!). I'm a pasty white girl and it takes approximately 15 minutes of sun exposure to turn me into a crispy critter (no joke, I went to Florida a few years ago and was burnt from head to toe after spending 2 hours in the pool despite applying 50 SPF waterproof sunblock before heading outside AND reapplying every half hour), thus leading me to avoid most activities requiring prolonged outdoor time. (Until late last summer, anyways, when I found 70+ SPF sunblock for the first time! It's a miracle!) The one event I really look forward to is the Great American Irish Festival, which is held the last full weekend of July. $20 for a 3-day pass...best $20 you can spend! Each day I get there as soon as it opens, and I leave when they kick us out for the night.

Why do I love GAIF so much? (Aside from the fact that it's a good excuse to strap on my kilt, tie green ribbons in my hair and paint Irish flags on my fingernails, that is?) Oh, where to start? For one thing, I love the music. All kinds of Irish and Scottish music. Traditional bands. Contemporary bands. Bagpipes. Lots and lots of bagpipes. OK, I'm not the biggest bagpipe fan out there, but it's fun to watch a bit of the pipe band competition, which culminates in a massed bagpipe march.

My favorite band, THE ELDERS

I also like to see Barleyjuice at least once during the weekend. Six guys, all wearing kilts! What's not to love?

BARLEYJUICE

New to this year's festival...Pogey and Hadrian's Wall. Hadrian's Wall was good but Pogey? Amazing! I think they're my new favorite band...after The Elders, of course! Super talented group of guys, very sweet and totally adorable too!

POGEY!

Bagpipes

Had enough music? Go watch the dancers!

Dance isn't your thing? How about some rugby and Gaelic football?

As if that isn't enough, there are plenty of demos, displays and workshops in the cultural building...this year I attended a tin whistle workshop and planned on going to an Irish language workshop but ended up seeing one of the bands and forgot about it. Oops. Maybe next year.

And, like any good festival/fair, there was no shortage of food! The British Isles were well represented this year with shepherd's pie (I *may* have gone back for seconds), bangers and mash, and corned beef sandwiches (OK, corned beef is acually an Irish-AMERICAN food, but that's nit picking), but there is plenty of standard fair fare available as well...pizza, fried dough, ribbon fries, blooming onions, Italian sausages, Greek gyros, etc, etc, etc! And don't forget the beer! Lots and lots of beer.

Last but not least, I love the comraderie. Always a pleasure reuniting with old friends and making new ones! I got to talk with my friend Cindy (sadly, she was running around like crazy all weekend so we never got a picture together), who I met on the Elders' message board a couple years ago and haven't seen since January, and finally met Caitlin, who I've been talking to on Facebook for a while now (she's a big Elders fan too!). And much to my pleasure, Cindy, who volunteers at GAIF, snuck me behind the barricades to get a pic with the Pogey boys (again, are they not too cute? I could just eat them up!) and chat with them a bit. Oh, and just before I left I ran into Joe Miquelon, of the Elders, and he was all too happy to take a moment for a photo op...nice guy, that Joe is, and one hell of a keyboard player! And then there was Beadman...sorry dude, if you're reading this (and I doubt he is, because really, no one reads my blog), I forgot your name. Anyways, all weekend he went around giving people beads and taking pics of them. I didn't have anything to give him in return but took his picture anyways. We chatted for a while...he said he's a freelance photographer.

And that, in a nutshell, is the highlight of my summers! For more great stories and photos, click on the link here or the button at the top of this post to head on over to the I ♥ Faces blog!

Respect your ELDERS! Or, my favorite things, Part 2

Another slow day on the home front so it's time for more of my favorite things. Tonight's topic? The Elders. I've said it before and I'll say it again...these guys are great. I first heard of them in 2007. I just happened to catch their song "Racing the Tide" on one of the digital music channels on TV and thought, hey, these guys are pretty cool. I jotted down the name of the band and CD so I could look for it later. But get this...just a few days later the newspaper came with an insert for a local Irish festival. An Irish festival that takes place practically in my own back yard...it literally takes all of 15 minutes to walk from my house to the fairgrounds where the festival is held. I'd been meaning to check out the festival, but never did for various reasons...couldn't get out of work, it was raining, I had tickets to a concert out of town, etc. Well, as I flipped through the insert I made up my mind that I was going this year, no ifs, ands or buts...because The Elders were one of the main acts!!! How cool is that? The festival runs Friday through Sunday. I made plans to go on Friday. The Elders were SO GREAT that I decided to go for their set on Saturday night as well. Couldn't get out of work Sunday afternoon, or else I would have been there that day as well!

So, what kind of music do these fellas play anyways? you may be asking. Well, their sound has been described as "Arse kickin Celtic music from the heartland." Pretty well sums it up. They play traditional Irish music kicked up a notch. Many of their songs refer to the history of Ireland, such as the songs "1849," "Hard Line," and "American Wake," and there's a bit of mythology thrown in as well, with songs like "Banshee Cry." Not too much in the way of sappy love songs, but for the romantics out there, give the beautifully tragic "Love of the Century" a try. Mix in a few foot-stompin' instrumentals like "Michael's Ride" and "Turnpike," and there you have it. The Elders.

For those of you unfamiliar with The Elders, please. Do yourself a favor. Check them out. Their website. MySpace. YouTube. See for yourself how awesome they are. Then, do yourself another favor. Find out when they'll be in your area, and go. They put on an amazing, high-energy show with lots of audience participation. Sing, dance, clap, jump...basically do whatever Ian (lead singer) tells you to do, that wily, charismatic Irishman!

If you're wondering which of their albums to buy, because of course you're now feeling compelled to buy one of their albums, I'd say go with Live at the Gem. It really captures the fun and energy of their shows and has a lot of their best songs, though they've released two phenomenal albums since then. Racing the Tide and Gael Day, their two most recent albums, will blow you away, they're so good. Really, you can't go wrong with any of their albums.