New Aisling portrait

L to R: Andi and Emma, Steve, Carol, Craig.

Band Member Changes

Our band membership has recently changed. Unfortunately both Stuart and Mary have decided to drop out for personal reasons. The good news, though, is that Carol Matheny has agreed to play fiddle for us. I'll be updating our web site (http://aisling.us) as I find time and get some new photos.

Steve

Andi's solo album is released!

Andi started working on a solo CD project last February and finished the recording in May. Add a few weeks for processing and printing, and the project is finally done. The CD's have arrived and will make their official debut at the Dublin Irish Festival (DIF) next week. You can hear some of the tracks at Andi's MySpace Page. There are 14 tracks and 76+ minutes of music on this CD.


(Emma's contributions were in chewing up the bodhran tipper prior to recording, plus looking so adorable on the liner notes portrait.)




Also, you can be among the elite pre-DIF CD release recipients by using PayPal:

Musicians: Andi Wolfe, Craig Caldwell, Stuart Brand, Steve Wolfe, Mary Bertke, Sid Omasta, Rick Nelson.

From the liner notes: "I’ve appreciated the music of Turlough O’Carolan (1670-1738) ever since I began to play traditional Irish music. He was a blind harper and composer who lived in Ireland during the Baroque era. His music shows influence from the harper tradition, the dance music of his time, and snatches and phrases from the Baroque music that would have been played in the Great Houses of Ireland where he entertained and gave lessons. O’Carolan’s music translates very nicely to the hammer dulcimer and I very much enjoyed arranging his tunes to go with traditional Irish dance music as well as original, contemporary Celtic music."

Here's what people have been saying about An Obair:

". . . Got the CD today and put it in my computer immediately! It's great! I can't wait to take it home and share it with others."

"The first day I had mine, I played it while I fixed supper. I know it made the food taste better."

"I am so taken with the music on An Obair; it is just lovely. I like it as much as my Handel and Bach. . . Now that I have the music on my computer and Shuffle I will let my husband have the CD for a little while. Congratulations on such an outstanding CD."

"The music is lovely!"

Andi's solo album is nearing completion

Solo album - hmmmm, more like a group project featuring the musicians of Aisling, Sid Omasta, and Rick Nelson. The good news is that all the tracks have been recorded now. The album title will be "An Obair," which is the Gaelic term for "The Work," and it is also the name of the town where Turlough O'Carolan was born.

There is a nice variety of music on the project: music by Turlough O'Carolan, some original tunes, traditional Irish tunes, and vocal tracks. Look for it to be released at the Dublin Irish Festival. It will also be available at CD Baby - stay tuned for news.




Andi Wolfe at the mic (triple harmony, anyone?). Most of the tracks feature Andi's hammer dulcimer playing, but she also played fiddle, bodhran and some interesting African percussion instruments.










Craig Caldwell on bouzouki. Craig did most of the guitar tracks and added mandolin to the mix.










Stuart Brand played some interesting violin parts ("Let's see what I can butcher together on the fly. . . ."). He also made his whistle debut on this project.









Steve Wolfe on flute and tin whistle.














Mary Bertke added some vocal harmony and banjo parts. She was furiously knitting a sweater to try to have it finished before she headed over to the UK for a vacation.

Aisling on Celtic Music Podcast

Our "Pilgrim's Road set" from our CD was featured on the 2008 St. Patrick's edition of the Celtic Music Podcast.

Aisling's first YouTube video

Check it out!





Here's the information from the YouTube page:

Aisling's first music video, featuring original tunes by Andi Wolfe:

A Walk in the Park
Drakensberg Storm
All Roads Lead to Underberg

These tunes were inspired by a memorable field season in South Africa and Lesotho in 2003. Andi is a botanist who works on parasitic plants in southern Africa. The 2003 field season was for a trip to the Drakensberg mountains and the highlands of Lesotho in search of Hyobanche, a parasitic genus in the broomrape family (Orobanchaceae). Collecting in these areas involves a lot of hiking and climbing in some breath taking scenery. Andi's field assistants included her graduate student, Jeff Morawetz, and two young lads from Cape Town who were the most amazing climbers: Nick and Chris Laidler. Andi isn't a young lass anymore and so it was kind of hard to keep up with these young men in the mountains. Thus, the title of the first tune is "A walk in the park" to commemorate one evening, after a very long hike, when Andi complained to these lads about how they thought these grueling hikes were just a walk in the park.

The second tune is in honor of the amazing thunderstorms that hit the highlands about noon each day. Thunder, lightning, torrential rains, hail stones the size of golf balls - you name it, you got it. Wow! Nature's fury at its best.

The third tune in this set is in honor of the Underberg Hotel, where Andi's team spent way too many nights because they couldn't get into Lesotho via Bushman's Nek. Communication between them and the pony trek guides fell apart and they waited, and waited, and waited some more. Finally, they drove up into Lesotho via Sani Pass. They had a lovely time at the Underberg Hotel, thanks to a pub and a lively bartender named Dean. The images in the video were taken by Andi Wolfe and are from the Drakensberg of South Africa and the highlands of Lesotho.

Aisling is a Celtic Folk band from central Ohio with band members including: Andi Wolfe (hammer dulcimer, fiddle, bodhran, vocals), Craig Caldwell (guitar, bouzouki, mandolin), Mary Bertke (banjo, bouzouki, vocals), Steve Wolfe (flute and tin whistle), and Stuart Brand (fiddle and flute). We play mostly traditional Irish music, but we also play our original tunes and arrange tunes to have a mix of genres ranging from jazz to chamber music.

Check our website at http://www.Aisling.us and our MySpace page at http://www.myspace.com/aislingtrad for more information.

The Pilgrim's Road is available from CD Baby.

Dublin Irish Festival 2007

August 3, 4, 5 - 2007: The best party in the country is the Dublin Irish Festival. We had two stage times and Andi did two hammer dulcimer workshops. Members of Aisling also helped with stage management, the ceili tent, sessions, and committee work. We love the festival!

Friday evening:

1.




As a warm-up to the festival, we performed at the Ohio State Fair on Thursday, August 2nd. This is a pic from setting up our sound system on the stage.





2.


Steve and I did a five hour stint as stage managers at the Dublin Pub stage on Friday evening. The first act up is always O'Kelly and Cotter - namely, flutist Morton O'Kelly and drummer Eddie Cotter Jr.





3.

Morton is a professor of geography at OSU and it was fun to hear the tunes of Ireland through his geographer's ears. He picked tunes from different counties and had the audience participate in a geography bee based on the tunes played.




4.






It's always a treat to hear Eddie play bodhran.










5.





Ditto for Morton - he played a nice variety of flutes and whistles for this set.










6.




Every year at the festival there is a sand castle built during the weekend. This year's theme was on the sponsorship of Bob Evans. I never did see the finished sculpture - I don't know how it fare after the big storm (more on that later).









7.





O'Kelly and Cotter always have to take a long break during their set to accommodate the opening ceremonies and speeches at the Emerald Club. Morton took the opportunity to play through some tunes while he was waiting in the wings.







8.



The pipe and drum corps pipe in the opening ceremonies.






9.



I always like to hear the pipes . . . .


from about a mile away.




10.




The opening ceremony - lots of patriotism (US and Irish), congratulations, welcomes, and remembrances.




11.



The view from backstage.







12.





A quiet moment for Eileen Ivers, who was waiting to go on stage.










13.





Sue Mogan sang the national anthems (US and Ireland).











14.



Eileen Ivers played a beautiful air in memory of Tommy Makem, who had passed away just a few days before the festival.





15.





John Whelan and the Cape May Ceili Band were next up on the Dublin Pub Stage. I think this picture captures the joy John has in the music. It's such a pleasure to hear him play dance tunes.








16.



Cape May Ceili Band








17.




Cape May Ceili Band






18.


Cape May Ceili Band








19.


Beth Patterson posing with Steve and I. We hadn't met Beth before this festival, and it was a real pleasure having the chance to talk to her and listen to her music.





20.



Beth Patterson - queen of the bouzouki and one of the fastest wits in town. Her playing is brilliant, her songs are great (some very moving, some extremely funny), and she knows how to work a crowd.










21.





There's never a dull moment when Beth is on stage.











22.



Steve, lending a hand with the mic.













23.



What is it about Irish music that draws characters such as this? Look back through the blog archive to our St. Pat's day gigs and you'll see more of the same. . .












24.




The Ladies of Longford performing on the Sports Pub stage on Friday night.






25.



The Ladies of Longford and friends.







26.



Niamh Parsons and Graeme Dunn on the Pub Stage, Friday night.












Saturday:


27.



Stuart Brand (Aisling) - Saturday in the entertainer's lounge before our first stage time.












28.



Craig Caldwell (Aisling) watching Randy Clepper try out Craig's new bouzouki.






29.


Bob Kirby holding court in the entertainer's lounge. The festival volunteers do a wonderful job each year.






30.




Randy Clepper






31.



Craig Markley and Craig Caldwell, backstage at the Dublin Pub.






32.



Sue Mogan on the Pub stage.







33.


Sue Mogan, Craig Markley, Pat Mogan, Sid O'Masta.







34.




Ditto






35.


Flutio, aka Brian McCoy, and the rest of the Kells doing a flute workshop.








36.


Eileen Ivers and Immigrant Soul on the Traditional Stage. Wow! What a show! This is a band you just have to hear. The crowd was overflowing and very enthusiastic about this act ("SOMEBODY SCREAM!!!!!").





37.


Michael and Steve Wolfe (Aisling)








38.




The crowd for Eileen Ivers






39.



What line are you in?







40.



Saturday night the festival broke the Guinness World record for the most people doing a jig simultaneously. Knot Fibb'n and friends played in the Sports Pub to help the crowd get into the dance.



41.



Ed Norris (The Hooligans) and Tim O'Neil (Knot Fibb'n)













42.



That's a lot of help for playing a jig.








43.


I'm not so sure that everyone was actually doing the real steps to a jig, but everyone was moving.








44.

This is the jig that never ends,
It just goes on and on my friends,
Somebody started doing it,
Not knowing what it was . . .


well, you know the rest of that story. . .




45.



NO! Make it go away!













46.



"They're still doing it! Make it stop!"









Sunday:


47.



My annual picture with John Whelan. What a great guy!






48.


Aisling was scheduled to play at the Sports Pub from noon to 1:45. While we were setting up the pipe and drum corps were warming up in the tent. Ouch! My ears hurt! They're loud!





49.

Well, we were supposed to play until 1:45, but Mother Nature had other plans. We had a huge thunderstorm come through the festival grounds - big enough that the organizers called for an evacuation. The rain was so heavy that the stage flooded - not a good thing with all the electrical wires on the ground.



50.


What to do, what to do? Follow the orders for evacuation or wait it out? We weren't given an option - everyone had to leave.






51.

We thought about leaving the gear up on chairs so we didn't have to haul everything through torrential rain, but we ended up lugging everything back to the rec center. Ouch! No carts to help. We managed to get everything back in one piece and not too wet. What an adventure. The sad part is that we lost out on CD sales since we didn't get to finish our set. Sigh.


52.


The silver lining of the evacuation is that we had a fantastic session going on in the entertainer's lounge during the wait for the all-clear.






53.


We still had a hammer dulcimer workshop to get through and so Craig, Steve, Stuart and I went to the session tent to warm up. My camera was fogged up from all the moisture.





54.


That's a bit better, but it took a bit more time for everything to dry out.







55.


The finale is always a lot of fun. Stuart (Aisling), checking out the action backstage. He was probably watching Beth Patterson . . .






56.




John Sherman












57.




Beth Patterson






58.



Newlyweds Josh and Charlene













59.



Kim Ruttan (The Kells), John Sherman and Craig Caldwell (Aisling) in the background.












60.




John Sherman and Craig Caldwell.






61.


Members of Seven Nations and Gaelic Storm









62.


Waiting backstage








63.




Deborah Colon (Changeling) and Mary Bertke (Aisling).





64.


More backstage waiting (Randy Clepper and Karl Colon (Changeling))








65.


Pete Purvis (Gaelic Storm)







66.


The Celtic Tenors








67.



Paul from Brigid's Cross was the MC for the finale.














68.

Beth Patterson with Gaelic Storm









69.


Ditto







70.



Dan Stacey and Jon Pilatzke - Step Crew (Seven Nations and Quagmire, respectively)







71.




Ditto





73.



Craig and Tania Markley








74.


Seven Nations








75.






Seven Nations










76.


Paul with Seven Nations









77.


Seven Nations








78.




Kirk McLeod of Seven Nations













79.


Morton O'Kelly







80.


Craig Markley








81.



A big finish for the finale - everyone's on stage








82.



A fantastic audience







83.




Karl Colon (on right) with Dan Fedoryka - Scythian







84.



Karl Colon









85.


finale








86.


finale








87.



Mary Bertke (on right)







88.


finale








89.



finale






90.



Finale













91.



Andi Wolfe (Aisling)














92.


l to r: Craig Markley, Morton O'Kelly, Stuart Brand (Aisling)








93.



Morton O'Kelly









94.



Ed Norris and Peg (Brigid's Cross)







95.


Flutio (Brian McCoy) with Andi Wolfe (Aisling) and Michael Wolfe







96.


Flutio and admirers (Michael and his girlfriend, Elizabeth)






97.


The final party for performers - nice food and good company. A great way to end the weekend.







98.



Leks Fedoryka - Scythian, Charlie - one of the festival drivers, Ron Keller who is with Beth Patterson, and ?






99.



The local crowd









100.



Bob and Billie Kirby

It's done!

We'll be releasing our CD at the Dublin Irish Festival. Our stage times are Saturday, 3:30 - 4:45 at the Irish Pub, and Sunday noon to 1:45 at the Shamrock Pub. In addition, most of us will be doing two Hammer Dulcimer workshops - one on the music of Turlough O'Carolan at 6 pm on Saturday in the music workshop tent, and another on the use of the hammer dulcimer in Irish music on Sunday at 4 pm.

If you'd like to hear some of the tracks on our CD go to our myspace page: http://www.myspace.com/aislingtrad

You can purchase it at CD Baby!

The project continues - Emma's turn

Emma made her recording debut this weekend.

She's the squeaky toy percussionist in the band.

Another Saturday, another recording session

Oh, look! We have a new recording engineer assistant.











Craig Markley found a kitten that was abandoned. It's sure a cute thing. It crawled into the cabinet and started to play with wires just as we were setting up for the session.








What a cutie!











With a little training, it might work out as an assistant, eh?











I did my other vocals on Saturday. I spent a lot of time in this room facing this mic set-up.















Stuart and Craig.












Stuart doing some of his magic on fiddle.

















Craig X 2.










Fiddling a scratch track for one of the vocal sets.












Stuart warming up for the real thing and Craig practicing for the next track.










Stay tuned for what this is all about . . .

Recording project continues

We're hard at work recording "The Pilgrim's Road" CD. Wow! What an effort this is to get so many of us into the studio at various times to add tracks to each tune set. We've had four Saturdays thus far and have scheduled sessions with Craig Markley through the middle of June.




Mary has had a couple of sessions to record banjo tracks and to start work on two of the song tracks.









Sometimes the studio work is an eye-opener in terms of what one learns as Craig does his digital editing. We've all learned that we have room for improvement, but we've also found out where our strengths are.








I've certainly had a session in humility as I listened to the scratch track for a fiddle tune set I composed. I am definitely playing second fiddle in the band!














Craig Markley keeps track of everything for us and has an incredible recording studio. It's been a real pleasure to work with him on this project.









Craig Caldwell just acquired a beautiful bouzouki and is adding some tracks to some of the tune sets we're currently recording.










Steve finally had some time to record some of his tracks this past weekend.







My hammer dulcimer is taking a short break while we work on some non-HD tracks.

As of today we have two tune sets that are pretty much ready to go. We have another eight or so that have been started in various forms and we still have about four to start. We have LOTS of work to do over the next month to get this done in time for the Dublin Irish Festival. Stay tuned for updates on the project.

More Recording Studio Photos

Aisling back in the studio at last!

It's been about 10 years since we've done a CD project and we're very excited to back in the studio. We're working with Craig Markley at Lone Raven Studio. The name of the band's CD will be "The Pilgrim's Road." This is a tune that I composed and we have an awesome photo to go with the set that includes another of my tunes called, "Dancing on the Headstones."





Here's my dulcimer - - in isolation out in the padded hallway. Everyone else is in the other room. I always knew I'd find myself in a padded room sometime in my life. . .








Do I look whacky?












Craig said, "yes, of course you do."








We're working with a click track and recording each of our parts in isolation. It's really neat to hear how the arrangement builds as we add each of our instruments onto the different tracks.










Here's Craig Markley working his magic with his software.






After each track is laid down we listen to it and decide on whether there are any problem spots and what to do to fix it. Sometimes it's recording a new patch over the mistake and other times Craig can grab something from another area and patch it in. That's the big advantage of working to a click track.

We did most of three tracks today. If the rest of the project builds like this one started, we're going to be very happy with our recording.

St. Patrick's Fun

Aisling had a long, but fun St. Patrick's Day. We left the house at 7 am to drive over to Craig's place in Plain City so we could caravan to Dayton.



We started out at 9:30 in the morning at the Dublin Pub in Dayton. We were out in the big tent, where it was freezing cold on stage, but warmer out in front of the stage. The crowd started building after we started our set, but they seemed to be more interested in drinking than listening.






Here's Mary snapping photos of Craig doing his uillean pipe solo. No, she's not working on an appliance repair . . .

;-)















Sound guy, Robert. It's always nice to have a sound system and technician provided. The rest of the day we had to provide our own sound system, and we had some challenges getting the mix and volume right.








Craig on uillean pipes.
















The view from stage.











Steve and Carol Smith. You can tell how cold it is by how bundled up we were on stage.








Of course, if you start drinking beer at 5 am, you're feeling pretty warm and unhibited by 10:30 am. I think this is Ken. Hello Ken! Welcome to the Aisling weblog.

There seemed to be a lot of unhibited attendees at the Dublin Pub, including a piper who came in during our set and commenced playing pipes at the entrance to the restroom in the back of the tent. After several minutes, the management went and told him to pipe down because we had a concert going here and all. . . Geez!







After our Dayton gig, we rushed back to town to grab the sound system and then we were off to Westerville for a two hour set at the Old Bag of Nails Pub. We played up on the third floor, which was a nice space. We didn't have to contend with a wayward piper, but we were up against the NCAA basketball championship tournament. We did have a lot of cheering and applause at odd moments during our set, but, hey, we'll take it like an Irish band. . .




Here's some of the afternoon crowd. They seemed pretty nice.












Now, this has got to be interesting. . .












Yes, indeed. This was the upstairs bartender in full St. Patrick's day regalia. What is it about green beer that has this effect on people?














Steve, Carol, and Craig playing "Sally Gardens."











These were a couple of Mary's friends who came to grade final exams while listening to our music. Faith Ann said the scoring would be much more favorable since our music put her into such a good mood.




The evening was capped off at the Groveport Town Hall. We've been playing here for several years and always enjoy ourselves. Linda Haley and the staff at the town hall do an excellent job of running a St. Pat's party. They start the evening with crafts for the kids, then have a dance troupe in to demonstrate traditional Irish step dancing. Traditional corned beef and cabbage is served to all attendees (no charge!), and then we play traditional Irish music. The crowd gets bigger every year, too. Thanks, Linda!

Another rehearsal, another dinner

Aisling is going to collectively get fat at this rate. We had another productive rehearsal on March 4th - this time at Stuart's house.











Stuart did Asian cuisine for us. Not too shabby for a bachelor, eh? Take note, Ladies - this guy can cook!





Stuart is now having a good time in China - just as we gear up for the St. Patrick's Day celebrations. The upside to this trip, besides Stuart having a good time, is he can learn some more recipes and we can have another yummy, I mean, productive, rehearsal at his house.

We played a concert last week at the Gerlach center - that was with half (or nearly half-Aisling). This was a noontime concert for a nice group of senior citizens. Whilst we were playing, the fire alarm kept sounding off. I'll interpret that to mean that we were really hot and not that someone was desperate to escape the premises while we were playing.

Last night we played at the Wesley Glen center - another venue for some nice seniors. This was a lot of fun for us because John Sherman joined us as a sub for Craig, who pulled a 24 hour shift at the hospital and couldn't be with us. The other fun aspect of last night's concert was the interaction we had with the audience. They were very curious about the music and our instruments and asked a lot of questions. We all had a good time together.

Our big day is St. Pat's, though, and we'll be playing three concerts in three different cities. We start out in the morning in Dayton at the Dublin Pub, where we'll play from 9:30 to 11:30. Then we have to rush back home to grab our sound system and head to Westerville to play a two hour set (2 - 4 pm) at the Old Bag of Nails pub. Our day ends at Groveport with a concert at their wonderful town hall on main street where we play from 8 to 9:30 pm. I love the acoustics of the Groveport Town Hall.

Join us if you can and say hello to the band!

We're going to be recording two new projects!

Our loyal fans will be glad to know that we are finally gearing up, for real, to record two new projects. We met with Craig Markley at Lone Raven Studios on March 1st to do a rehearsal so that he could get a feel for the group dynamics. Craig has a very nice set-up and it will work very well for us. We'll lay down the rhythm and primary melody tracks first using a click track. Then the rest of the group will go up and record their parts.

Our first project will be a band CD called, "The Pilgrim's Road." This is a tune I composed as part of a set. More details to come as we finalize the arrangement, but we're very excited about this one. . . This project will have five or six song arrangements, some original tune compositions, and a smattering of old favorites.

The second project is an O'Carolan CD - more of a chamber music approach to Irish music. I'm still working on the set list and title for this, but I hope to have it ready in time for Dublin Irish Festival.




Steve and Craig. Steve is prepping his alto flute for his digeree-flute sound effect. That probably won't make the cut on the CD, but who knows?









Mary singing, "Paddy's Green Shamrock Shores."











Mary, Stuart, and Craig Markley.

Aisling rehearsal at Craig's house

Craig hosted a lovely dinner and rehearsal for the band this past Thursday. We've decided to keep Craig - he is a gourmet chef. Ok, his guitar playing is pretty good, too, but we REALLY like his cooking!




Craig also served some nice Australian wines. He's uncorking a red here.











Shall I pour? Mary says, "yes, please."











Mary has a cool friend there.










"Would you share that cool collar? It might go well with my outfit."

















Say hello to Carol Smith. She's going to be playing with us for the St. Patrick's concerts. Stuart is leaving for China on March 13th and so he's going to be missing all of our favorite March gigs. Carol has been sitting in with us at rehearsals over the past month. She's picked up the repertoire pretty well and will be a good sub for Stuart. She's better looking than him, too. . .














Craig served us a wonderful black bean chowder. It was a recipe he found in a wine magazine, I think.








Yummmmmm!
















After dinner we moved into the living room to do our rehearsal. My hammer dulcimer will have to serve as my proxy since I was taking all of the photos. Carol, Mary, Stuart and Craig (l to r).








Mary, Stuart, Craig (l to r).











Steve on flute.

At the Bookstore

Aisling played at Liberty Bookstore in the Lane Avenue Mall on the 21st of December. We actually had an audience again...cool! We're playing there on the 3rd Thursday of each month. Come and see and hear us.


 

Again...

And here's the last of the session photos.

Yes...More

Here are some more photos from the session.


 

Still Yet Even More Dublin Irish Festival 2006

Here we are playing tunes with many friends in the Session tent.


 

Yet Even More Dublin Irish Festival 2006

Here are Stuart and Andi at the hammer dulcimer workshop. You can just barely see part of Craig's head sticking up over the dulcimer. 

Even More Dublin Irish Festival 2006

Here we are having another rehearsal... you'd think we'd be pretty good by now with all of these rehearsal. This one was for Andi's hammer dulcimer workshop.

More Dublin Irish Festival 2006

This past weekend was the 19th annual Dublin Irish Festival at Coffman Park in Dublin, Ohio. Aisling, the traditional Irish music band I play in was on stage at the Sports Bar stage on Sunday and my O'Carolan workshop (hammer dulcimer) was on Saturday. We all had a great time there and the festival was as good as ever. It was our 9th appearance at the Dublin Irish Festival, and the first with our new line-up. I didn't take as many pictures as I've done in the past, but here are some from the weekend.


On Friday night Steve and I worked as stage managers for the Irish Pub stage. This evening started with O'Kelly and Cotter (Morton O'Kelly on flute and Eddie Cotter Jr on bodhran).















Here's another view where Eddie doesn't have a microphone in his face.












The second act up was Conway and Dolan (Brian Conway on fiddle and Brendan Dolan on keyboard and flute).















These two were joined by legendary flute player Felix Dolan, who was playing keyboard here. I had a good time chatting with Felix backstage. He remarked on my wearing ear plugs. Maybe I'm overly cautious, but with all the noisy woodturning and carving equipment I use, I take extra precautions to protect my hearing. The stages tend to have the sound system up way too loud and I don't want to be exposed to excessive decibels all weekend long.






Here's the audience in the Irish Pub during the Conway and Dolan set.











Hey Stuart - what's under the kilt?

Stuart is in Aisling and came by to visit while we were doing our stage managing. He had just purchased this kilt over at a vendor near the Celtic Rock stage.














Aisling members: Stuart and Andi

















Brian Conway after completing an awesome set. Brian is a three-time All-Ireland fiddle champion; twice for Jr and once for senior.












All of the Aisling band members have had a busy summer of travel and it was hard to get all of us together at the same time to practice. Usually we had four of five members at a rehearsal. Friday night was the first opportunity since early July that we were all together so we had a band rehearsal at the Dublin rec center.



Mary Bertke on banjo and Craig Caldwell on guitar.












Stuart Brand on fiddle and trying out his new kilt.
















Steve trying to take a nap during rehearsal.













Craig also made his Aisling debut on Uillean pipes during our set.
















Saturday night we went to see Solas. They're incredible!












Here's Craig during our stage time on Sunday. His slow air on pipes went very well.














The finale on Sunday evening is always a lot of fun. John Whelan was in charge and he did something a little different this time around. Instead of organizing local bands to play with some of the headliners, he would come running off stage and grab players to come up on stage to play whatever he called out. That was fine for me since I just brought my bodhran to play - I can play along with just about any tune. I had two stage times up front with a microphone and the fiddlers from The Bridies said nice things to me afterwards about my "awesome playing." That's good for building confidence, and it's nice that some of the headliners are friendly.

Here are some behind-the-scenes photos I took during the finale.




The new line-up of The Kells. Pat Foley on the left replaced Eddie Cotter Jr. on bodhran, Brian McCoy is the virtuoso flute and whistle player and Kim Rutan rounds it out on guitar and vocals.








Dave Hawkins is back to the festival after a few years sabbatical.


















Aisling members Stuart Brand and Craig Caldwell. I have no idea what they are looking at, but it must have been interesting.









Cathie Ryan (left) with Ladies of Longford members Hilda Doyle and her daughter, Heather.











Felix Dolan (green hat) chatting with Cathy Ryan. You can see John Whelan in the background talking to Tom Davis.











That's me with Brian McCoy and Albert Alfonso, the maker of my bodhran.












Albert is quite a character, and he's the only bodhran maker I've met who has dared to kiss me on the neck. I won't post the follow-up picture of my reaction to this. . .

Albert can get away with this simply because he makes great bodhrans. He's a pretty decent player, too.






Stuart was taking the photos of Albert kissing my neck, so when I asked him to pose with Bob he decided to mimic Albert. I won't post the follow-up pic to this one, either.










Here's the set where Steve was up on stage with the biggies. He's second from the right in the blue shirt. That's Felix Dolan on the far right and Morton O'Kelly on the other side of Steve.










During one of my stage times I took a lot of photos. This is the percussion section trading riffs.











Steve chatting with Mary Bertke and Marian Funk.












John Whelan doing his thing and having a grand time. He really enjoys the interaction with the other players. It's fun to watch from stage. You can see how big the Traditional Stage venue is from this angle.









Behind the stage waiting for a chance to go play.













The audience for the finale.













On stage is where the party is! Everyone has a good time here.












John Whelan flirting with one of the fiddlers from The Bridies.













And, my traditional post-finale picture with John Whelan. He sure sums up what the Dublin Irish Festival is all about - good music, good craic, and a lot of lovely people that come together to celebrate Celtic traditions.

Dublin Irish Festival 2006

Yes, we do rehearse...although I guess it's not too obvious based on these photos. When we weren't messing around, we actually did play through our set list.


(What's under the kilt, Stuart?)

















Now, aren't you sorry you asked?

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