I'm in between rodding out my drains here at home but thought that I'd try to give you a quick re-cap of yesterday's soggy events at Chicago's Celtic Fest.

I didn't get there until about 2PM and through the miracle of modern cell-telephony managed to meet up with Galician (David) shortly thereafter. We wandered around in the pouring rain trying in vain to keep our Guinness from getting watered down...they should give you sippy-lids with those, I swear. David mentioned that Mark and Rob had been there earlier bit had ducked out for a bit and were coming back.

We managed to get under some cover at the Nova Scotia Gathering tent where the Stockyard Kilty Band valiantly managed to play in spite of being under a very leaky tent...I started up a conversation with a fella from the SYKB who turned out to be Dave McKee, Jr. The McKee's are a sort of a famous SYKB dynasty so that was pretty cool. And I mean it when I say that they were toughing it out by playing...it was pishing and they were dodging several dozen dramatic leaks in that tent.

http://www.sykb.com/

...so anyway...my wife and daughter got back from exchanging our White Sox tickets for the game that got rained out this past Friday evening for tickets for the game that will, no doubt, be rained out tonight...we had been invited to attend an event held by the Nova Scotia tourism folks and my wife suggested that David might want to come long. The Nova Scotia folks were quite hospitable and put out a darn fine spread...crab cakes, salmon, lobster salad...an impressive culinary demonstration of their natural resources including some Moosehead brewskis...

...and, speaking of brewskis...who turns up at this juncture but our own Brewboy! He turned on the charm and the Nova Scotia people once again demonstrated their hospitality and he was in! More Mooseheads! More crab cakes! More of those remarkable Nova Scotia and Cape Breton musicians...those guys are, without exception, fantastic.

We marched over from this private event back to the Nova Scotia Gathering tent for more tuneage. David and Rob eventually went over to the big stage to see Great Big Sea while my family and me just stayed at the Gathering tent. Headed back home shortly thereafter...in more rain.

It never stopped raining...

I really feel sorry for the musicians who would have had a better crowd and the vendors who really had to contend with a sparse attendance because of the weather. I wish that there had been a plan B to relocate the fest in case of weather. I note that there were several other events going on all over the US and Canada this weekend and hope that they had slightly better weather. Top that off with the fact that some folks are getting absolutely lambasted by the weather this weekend...we just got wet, some f them got flooded out.

Here's to the brave few who came and stayed...maybe next year...

Best

AA