It’s Festival Season!

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Irish Voice Entertainment

It’s Festival Season!

June 21, 2007

IT’S summer and you know what that means. Sunscreen. Lots of sunscreen lathered atop your freakishly white skin.

It also means that the pale nation we call Irish Americana will be braving the scorching heat to rock out to their favorite Celtic tunes at their favorite Irish festival!

The season kicked off for me last week during the annual New Jersey Irish festival. When the organizers moved it from the PNC Bank Arts Center in Holmdel over to the Lakewood Blue Claws Stadium in Lakewood, many people predicted gloom and doom. People said that after packing the Arts Center, Lakewood would be a letdown, spelling the beginning of the end of this beloved green tradition.

As it turns out, the new venue pumped new blood into the annual gathering. Unlike PNC Bank, which set up irrational parking lot traffic schemes and gave us all the bum rush in the afternoon to make way for a Bruce Springsteen concert that night, the Lakewood Blueclaws were most accommodating hosts!

Nothing says summer like baseball, and the diamond was adorned this day with bagpipers lining around the bases during the bagpipe competition.

Best of all, the entertainment had something in it for everyone. Willie Lynch, Eamonn Ryan’s Showband and the Prodigals entertained a festive crowd during this picture perfect day. Kudos to the organizers for making this bold move and reinvigorating the traditional festival with this much needed change in venue.

The party goes on all around the country in the coming months, so dust off your frequent flyer miles and visit some of these killer festival lineups across the country!

This Friday finds Blackthorn, Philadelphia’s best Irish rock outfit, headline the Celtic Fling at the Pennsylvania Renaissance Faire in Manheim.

For those of you who would prefer to stay in the city limits, you can check out the Irish festival at Penn’s Landing (Columbus Blvd and Delaware Ave near Spring Garden Street) in Philadelphia.

For those of you with vacation plans out west, there is the Colorado Irish Festival in beautiful Littleton. Enter the Haggis, Makem and Spain Brothers, U2 cover band Under a Blood Red Sky, the Prodigals, and Colcannon, combined with the deadly mixture of alcohol and high altitude, make this a must weekend indeed! Log onto coloradoirishfestival.org for all the dish.

The Dublin Ohio Irish festival is one of the largest festivals in the heartland and it happens on the weekend of August 3. There is something for everyone, including a 5k Ohio run for the healthy people and various pub crawl activities for the rest of us.

Flogging Molly, Black 47, the Prodigals and Brigid’s Cross are among the dozens of headliners at the event. For more information, log onto dublinirishfestival.org.

The Milwaukee Irish Festival happens August 16-19, and it features music stars on both coasts. Kansas City is represented by the Elders, while Seanchai and the Unity Squad keeps it real for New Yorkers in da house! Cathy Ryan and Aoife Clancy will commandeer the Celtic Roots stage for the folkies in all of us. For more information log onto irishfest.com.

For my money, the best lineup happens in Kansas City from August 31 through September 2. The Saw Doctors, Solas, Glengarry Bhoys, The Elders, Gaelic Storm, and the U2 cover band 2U make this an Irish festival worthy of your green. KCIrishfest.com is where you can get the lowdown!

For those of you who want to stay close to home, there is a Long Island Irish festival brewing for Labor Day. Stay tuned for more details.

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