So
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monshu has just confirmed that old friends of us will be coming to stay with us the second weekend in September. This spurred me to check the Celtic Fest schedule, since after last year's rainout, I'm more determined that ever to put in an appearance. Sadly, it looks like I'll be going in
spite of the headliners rather than on account of them.
Whenever I see the words "exciting fusion" or "blending modern and traditional" in connexion with a "Celtic" band, then they automatically have twice as hard a row to hoe in gaining my affections. Which is ironic, since some of my all-time favourite Celtic acts (e.g. The Pogues) could be described in just this way. The trouble is these descriptors have become lazy shorthand for the Irish equivalent of New Country, i.e. soft rock with pipes and fiddles.
I was actually kind of relieved that all I could find for McPeake was a compilation video, since after hearing snippets of one lame guitar ballad or "mystic" pipe solo after another, I doubt I could actually sit through a full-length composition of theirs. Pogey at least are more in the Drovers mode than the Altan, but the couple of songs I listened to on YouTube had me yawning. But just reading the homepage for Canadian Corrs-knockoffs Leahy was painful to my ears.
Gadelle at least
sound promising, since they call to mind the immense good time I had when La Bottine Souriante played several years back. But what is the deal with trying to pass off French Canadian folk music as "Celtic" anyway? Between Leahy (from Ontario) and Pogey (Nova Scotia), the whole programme is so damn North North American this year they should rename it "Canuck Fest" just for truth-in-advertising purposes.
Despite the name, it's always been more pan-Irish than anything. Most years they can't even be arsed to book a Welsh artist, and certainly not anyone of major calibre in the folk-rock scene. (Jon, we love you, but you don't even know the damn language.) And who can remember the last time they had a Scottish artist? I know they probably don't have the budget for the Corries or Capercaillie (though Gaelic Storm aren't exactly playing for free), but I would kill for a less-known but dead-interesting artist like Macumba, let alone a halfway talented puirt a' bhèil performer.
Bitching aside, I'll be there, since the small tents still host near-unknowns who really know their reels and slides. I just might not be staying past teatime, even if this year the heavens
don't open.
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