I know it's 6 months early, but NTIF has announced their headliners

The North Texas Irish Festival, which will be held from February 28 through March 2, 2014, has announced their Headliners for the upcoming event:

Natalie MacMaster and Donnell Leahy

Solas

Dervish

Nuala Kennedy Trio

Makem and Spain Brothers

Ed Miller

The Máirtín de Cógáin Project

The Town Pants

We Banjo 3

For more information, go to the Headliners page at the NTIF website, it looks like a great festival indeed!

The Parting Glass

I just saw this on Facebook a little while ago.

"The Celtic Community of North Texas has lost a giant of a man. Last night, our dear friend Curt Marcus suffered a fatal heart attack. He was a beautiful man, devoted to Irish music, his family and the celtic community. He has touched so many lives."

Steve & I had the pleasure of a conversation with Curt on the shuttle bus at NTIF last March. He is a man we've seen there and at CelticFest Mississippi for many years now, but really hadn't talked with until this year. It will be odd being at both festivals and not seeing him there.

Here's a song for Curt.

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Feel Good Friday!

Let's Rock!

After reviewing some videos of a SixMileBridge concert that was to become their live album, I find that they were all a little too long for this forum. I still highly recommend checking out that footage.

I settled on this clip of Jiggernaut that was a quasi-reunion at NTIF this past March. It features Wolf Loescher signing his song "Amazing Grace (Again)". Anyone who has ever been to a Highland Games or a Pipe Band Competition will appreciate this song.



Jiggernaut was founded as a sort of Celtic rock supergroup. Killer vocals by Deanna Smith-Scotland, great musicians, originals and traditional songs with a rock sensibility. Jiggernaut is one group that the Cracker & I don't miss while at NTIF!

Feel Good Friday!

Please enjoy this selection by Smithfield Fair from the Scottish Festival in Arlington, TX. "Long Ships" is always a crowd pleaser and encourages participation.


The Cracker & I are on the road to the North Texas Irish Festival today. We have a full weekend of good music, good food, good friends, good craic! Hope to see you there!

Road Trip!

Each year as the New Year begins, the Cracker and I begin planning our assault on the North Texas Irish Festival. Their website has the list of performers up. This festival always provides a great weekend of entertainment. We head down on Friday, stopping in Texarkana to get the Cracker his Whataburger fix. On Friday, we'll either head down to Fair Park for the evening's music or hang out at the hotel to listen to the seisuins.

Seisuins (or sessions), for those who don't know, are where musicians gather together for the joy of playing. Sometimes the most amazing music comes out of seisuins; sometimes new bands are formed at seisuins. I have this great memory of Eileen Ivers playing at a seisuin in Dallas with a family of youngsters. At NTIF, you just wander the ground floor of the host hotel and you're likely to find seisuins in empty meeting rooms, hallways, nooks and crannies, anywhere there is a space big enough for a couple musicians.

Then there's the actual festival! We go at the beginning and stay until the end, or close to the end. We may do a little shopping with the vendors and the CD booth, but it's mostly about hearing as much music as we possibly can. Oh, visiting all the doggies with the different rescue groups--Irish Wolfhounds, Greyhounds, and little dogs too.

Here's a video that gives a flavor of NTIF from 2007


This one shows more of the dancing, but we usually don't see a whole lot of that:


NTIF is a time when we get to see friends that we only see once or maybe twice a year. I have been going to NTIF since 1999, without missing a year. The Cracker didn't travel with me for only 3 of those years. Anyway, we highly recommend this event.

In addition to the music, the seisuins and the old friends, we also get to eat at one of our favorite eateries, Cafe Brazil. Yummy!

We'll see you in Dallas, March 6-8!

Feel like a long weekend? I have a suggestion

This weekend brings the 25th annual North Texas Irish Festival at Fair Park in Dallas, TX, which has become a can't-miss for Celtic fans from the Mid-South and the Southwest.

This festival continues to showcase the finest talent in music and dance in the Southwest, as well as bringing in the top performers from the US, Canada, and the British Isles. Among the international headliners are the legendary Tommy Makem, along with his sons The Makem Brothers, Cathie Ryan (who has wowed audiences at our local CoffeeHouse Concerts each of the last two years), Scottish singer-songwriter Ed Miller (one of my favorites), and Brian McNeill, founder of the Battlefield Band, who is a powerful performer.

Included among the regional headliners are Jackson, MS's Legacy (featured on the blogroll), Jim Flanagan, a USM professor from Ballyvourney (I hope that's right) who is the best Sean Nos (traditional) Irish singer I've heard, Tinsmith (who just played the Folk Alliance Conference here this weekend), and Spot & Albert, two brilliant musicians who don't sing a lot but are hilarious as well as talented beyond words.

If you love this music (and chances are you wouldn't be here if you DIDN'T), this is a worthy trip to make. I will be there, and I hope you are, too, it's terrific, not just for the music during the Festival itself, but for the sessions at the Radisson bar late into the night, where you see world-class players jamming with local musicians, it's just amazing.

Come to big D this weekend and you won't go wrong; you can even buy tickets in advance online at the website (above and on the blogroll), a weekend pass is just $30 (if you're going to be there all weekend, why not?).

While the host hotel has sold out, you can still find a room (if you move quickly) at the backup hotel, the Holiday Inn Select on North Central Expressway; they WILL provide shuttles to and from the Radisson Central Dallas, where you can hear sessions and take shuttles to and from Fair Park.

I will have more on some great places to eat in Dallas later this week.