The Almonte Celtfest

This past weekend marked the tenth anniversary of the Almonte Celtfest and our second. We stumbled upon it last year and had a wonderful time. While there was no group that could quite match last year's headliners, The Elders, from Kansas City, there was still a lot of talent, and we had a splendid time.

They expanded the program to Saturday evening this year. Unfortunately, the weather wasn't co-operative. You don't see many people in the first picture below, do you? That was early and, of course, more people did show up but not nearly as many as Sunday afternoon when the weather was much nicer and The Hill was crowded.



Cuppa and I never go to pubs, hardly ever anyway, but we did head off to JR's to hear Celtic Moon after the concert in the park on Saturday night. They're an excellent new group. They have slightly different sounds or styles depending on who they feature on a particular song. When the fiddler leads they have a Celtic sound, but when the guitarist leads it's somewhat bluesy. When the bass guitarist is featured, it's more of a rock vibe. But it's all good. They were a highlight for me, and I hope they'll come back to Celtfest next year.

I had planned to take a lot of pictures and clips on Sunday, but The Hill got crowded, and I lost heart. The two pictures are of the first group to perform, The Barley Shakers. They're a wonderful bunch of local musicians, not as polished as some of the other performers, perhaps, but quite talented nevertheless and a whole lot of fun. I hope they become regulars too. Below the photos, there are two video clips, one of the Barley Shakers and the second of some local step dancers. There were lots of fine fiddlers at Celtfest, but the Quebecker who fiddled with this group was something extra special.