Great Scots!

Hi all! My husband and I have just returned from a fun little getaway to the Glasgow Highland Games in Glasgow, KY. I took him to this festival as a birthday gift. Can you believe that this is our first time getting away without children EVER in 15 years of being parents?? Wow! We had our wonderful neighbor and long time babysitter stay with the kids while we went, so we knew they were in good hands. It was so nice to be at the stage where all of our kids are old enough to not be sad when we took off for a day and a half. A couple of years ago we would have walked out the door with tears in the background. Now they all just took it in stride.

The festival is a fun one if you enjoy Celtic/Scottish type things. We haven't gone to any events like this before but I knew my husband would love it. I borrowed a fab Utilikilt for him to wear and he looked positively yummy in it. ;)

We got to see lots of cool things like leather shields, bodhrans (my new favorite instrument), awesome hand-carved bows, knives and swords of various lengths and styles, and we got to drink homemade root beer (which is not very much like regular root beer). The people watching is the best, though, with lots of Rupert-type guys going around with amazing tattoos, braided beards and hair, huge wide belts, kilts, etc. I'll tell ya...if ever you thought kilts were for sissies, I dare you to go to a Highland Games festival and say that to someone's face. As the popular motto goes, "A Man in a Kilt is a Man-and-a-Half!" :)

My husband found a traditional wool kilt in an unusual orange/red plaid that we bought and looks great on him. I got some pretty, dangly earrings. We also had fun buying souvenirs for our kids.

The best part of the trip was the music! All day there were two music pavilions with artists and groups rotating through them. We got to see some awesome and fun music groups perform multiple times through the day, plus we went to a nighttime concert where we heard more. The ENERGY these people have is just.....fantastic!

We saw the Celtic Rock group Seven Nations. I guess they've been around for a pretty long time. Here's a youtube video of them:

We also got to hear Father, Son, and Friends. They sing more traditional Scottish music.

We also got to see the AWESOME, PRIMAL, TREMENDOUS group Albannach. WOW! This video can't possibly do justice to the sights and sounds of seeing these passionate performers blasting out their percussionistic delights! Fortunately we were able to purchase a DVD of Albannach performing live so that our kids could get to see a little of what it's all about. Hearing isn't enough!


My very favorite group was Need Fire. This is a great group to see in concert. Their fun personalities shine right through the performance, their music is catchy and fun for bouncing around, and they have a really nice polish to their live show. You can listen to clips of lots of their music here. I was so glad I was able to familiarize myself with their songs beforehand, because concerts are way more fun when you can sing along! :)

Some especially fun tidbits about this band: Lead singer and guitarist John is Dad to lead fiddler Dylan. Dylan is an amazingly talented 19 year old guy. He plays the fiddle, the piano, and the dirigidoo. I just LOVE LOVE LOVE to see bands using unexpected instruments. What a treat to hear the haunting, wacky sounds of dirigidoo combined with guitar, bagpipes, drums, and bass! Too. Cool. Dylan is a pretty cute kid with a fun personality, so I'm thinking it's probably a mighty good thing that he has his dad along to keep things with the girls under control. They get positively swoony over Dreamy Dylan. :)

Need Fire writes most of their own songs. I was impressed to see that many of my favorites were written by Dylan. Really, he's so impressively talented. It made me sorry that I didn't take my own 14 year old along to drink in the inspiration. At least I bought him a Need Fire t shirt and got all the guys to sign it. :)

Here are some YouTube videos of Need Fire.
This one is just a full length song:

Here are some concert vids: