What's the Rumpus?

Yesterday was the final day of Celtic Classic in Bethlehem. We've been dying to see Gaelic Storm at the annual festival of all things Celt, and this year we finally got our wish when organizers invited them as the closing act.

I'm still not sure they knew what they were in for when they booked them. Audiences at Bethlehem's music festivals tend to sit in folding chairs, tapping their feet, and letting kids run and play in the dance areas near the stage - unless someone plays the chicken dance, and then the dance floor turns into a festival of clucking and shaking of rumps.

We had a pretty good idea of how Gaelic Storm would change that demographic, so we showed up about 5 hours before they were scheduled to hit the stage. This of course meant that we had to sit through several other acts.

First up were "The Barley Boys". At the risk of being rude, let's just say they weren't really our style. Oh, what the heck - let's be rude and say their accents were as fake as the Rolex watch you can buy on the street corner in Times Square. I don't have a problem with Americanized Celts - I AM an Americanized Celt. I have a problem with them pretending to be authentic. Especially when their songs wax poetic about the IRA. Seriously, has anyone NOT figured out that being associated with terrorists is a bad thing? Their fiddler had skills, though.

Next were some cute dance numbers by the Highland dancers of a local school. We grabbed some food while we watched. Speaking of Americanized (or perhaps Mexicanized) Celts, "Irish Nachos"??? Kairi ordered them anyway and enjoyed the nacho toppings on - what else? - fried potatoes. Nicky got pork barbecue, which was just completely wrong, and Scott and I shared a shepard's pie that wasn't half bad. He also got a beer and a meat pie, but I didn't like either.

The final act to take the stage before Gaelic Storm was called "Town Pants". They were quite good. One of their songs had a cute chorus which went something like: "I said I loved you. I was drunk, but I meant it anyway." They had a really high-energy style and the guy on the tin whistle was astounding.
Now we had staked out "good" seats in the second row. But it became rapidly evident that this was NOT going to be your average sedately seated Bethlehem crowd, so we ditched our seats to head for the front of the stage when we realized that standing was going to be the order of the evening. We were a bit late on the draw because security had been discouraging people from moving up, and we weren't sure if we should give up our seats. But we were still only one line of people back from the stage. Unfortunately, that line of people was much taller than our two, but they were able to peek through the gaps of people to see as Gaelic Storm took the stage.

What followed was an hour and a half of singing, shouting, carousing, dancing, laughing, and generally causing a rumpus. The band has several sing-along numbers, but we sang along with everything. (Until they threw in a cover that threw us for a loop - we have every Gaelic Storm album and suddenly we were the ones with blank faces - what the heck is this song??! - turned out to be "Leaving on a Jet Plane" but we're a bit young for that, sorry.) They played a great set. We knew "Born to Be a Bachelor" was coming up when Patrick said, "I DO know where I am, but I have to ask, is this Steelers country or Eagles country?" Our shouted replies had him going, "Steagles??" but he eventually decided Eagles fans outnumbered the Steelers fans and replaced the words of the song "I'll be scullin' the pints down at the pub, I'm watching the football (Eagles) game." We also got to hear Kelly's Wellies, Scalliwag, Darcy's Donkey, What's the Rumpus, The Night I Punched Russell Crowe, Beggarman, and Johnny Tarr, along with some great instrumentals. There were probably a few others I'm forgetting now, but it rocked. Here are some photos - sorry for the lousy quality. The drum/box solo at the end of the set before the encore was beyond amazing - check out Ryan playing the box in the photos below.
When we left, Nicky said, "Can we come back next year, even if Gaelic Storm isn't here?" From a kid wearing a signed Gaelic Storm t-shirt, I think that's a pretty good review!