The Night when Everyone’s Irish

August brings with it the annual Irishfest festival to the La Crosse area.  Held at the south side Oktoberfest grounds, the 5th annual Irishfest festival felt very traditional this year with returning events, people and bands. I, myself, am not Irish.  I am more Danish in ethnicity outside of being American, but everyone seems to be proud of the country their ancestors came from.  But there’s nothing wrong with celebrating with the Irish to great music and drinks.

As I planned last year, the band I wanted to see at Irishfest was Gaelic Storm.  Gaelic Storm is a popular Celtic band who plays traditional Irish and Scottish music.  Formed in 1996, they got their biggest break, after already being a popular pub band, appearing as the steerage band in the movie Titanic.  From then on, they began touring the world and releasing albums that became instant hits.

With high energy live concerts, they are a great festival band who always put on a good show.  They have been the headliner at Irishfest in La Crosse for the last few years.  They also headline Milwaukee’s Irishfest, which is known as the largest celebration of Irish music and culture in the world.  Gaelic Storm has released six new original albums including 2008’s release, What’s The Rumpus?

Saturday night’s concert was highlighted by hot temperatures, even after the sun went down.  But that didn’t hamper anyone’s spirit once Gaelic started their set.  A very crowd oriented concert, you will have more fun at their shows if you know all of their lyrics versus being a first timer.  They also started up a competition from gig to gig to show the strength of their fan base at each concert called the Adventures of Darcy, named after their song “Darcy’s Donkey.”  Darcy is a miniature donkey figure that dances around in front of a digital camera at each gig.  However, they haven’t posted the video yet, so once they do, I’ll add it to this post.

I’m counting on Gaelic Storm coming back to Irishfest next year, and this time I’ll be more prepared with a better knowledge of lyrics and hopefully it will be a cooler night to sing along with them.

-BC