A short report by Barry Martyn
The format of the Dunmore East Festival requires stamina, or failing that, plenty of Guinness!
The festival is held in 6 locations, namely the Pubs and Hotels within Dunmore East and you are pretty well guaranteed to find music going on somewhere at any time of the afternoon or evening up to about 2.00am. For us this meant a daily Schedule of one 2 hour set in the afternoon and a further 2 hour set during the evening. As Rick had a prior engagement, we had enlisted the help of Ivor Ottley on fiddle which did of course require spending some time running through our repertoire of 30 + numbers. An enjoyable but exhausting three days.
We were fortunate to have some excellent accommodation in the Brookside B&B (click on name for web link) where we were made most welcome by Alan and Karen Priest. Dunmore East is a splendid holiday location so if you're visiting Ireland its well worth spending a day or two based here.
One disappointment was that we seemed to be the only 'straight' bluegrass band this year. Don't get me wrong the other bands that we did see were excellent, but didn't use a conventional Bluegrass line up and were in the main using DI'd (electrified) instruments.
Click on any picture to enlarge
