Well, it was officially our second outing under the name "The Devil's Tailors", but it felt more like our first real debut. This year, we had a full band and a nice long set.
I spent the morning setting up, and then played for the Alexandria branch of the Royal Scottish Country Dance Society with Julie Gorka. Then it was time for us to get going. Rhianon had to cancel, because their singers all had an upper respiratory flu. So the stage manager (me!) awarded us all their time. We had prepared an hour and a half's worth of show, and we got to use every bit of it.
The National Tartan Day festival takes place in Market Square in Alexandria, with a number of vendors and representative from Scottish heritage societies and clans setting up tents on the square. It's a very open area with a lot of foot traffic, and the weather was wonderful this year.
We were excited to take the stage, and had a blast. Almost everything went very well, with only a few snafus.
The most difficult moment was during The Devil's Reels - three (three!) of my fiddle's pegs come loose and the strings un-spooled. So wile I was desperately trying to re-tune while Lauren carried on, I told the band to skip The Dram Shell, which Lauren didn't know yet, and came in a couple notes into Timour the Tartar to finish the set. Also, at one point in the set, Chris (who was on bodhran) dropped his tipper! So though it all worked out okay in the end, we now have officially declared this our "cursed" set.
We had an excellent reception, especially for the pipes+fiddle sets, and the St. Andrew's Society folks were very enthusiastic.
My friend Holly from Fark.com came out to see us, and she sent pictures. I'll try to get them up ASAP.
I forgot to switch the input on my laptop from the internal mic (which picked up the monitors and stage) to line in (which was what the audience heard), so only the pipe sets came out decently. So here they are:
The Famous Reels (right click, save file to your computer)
The Muckin' Jigs (right click, save file to your computer)
The Virgin Wedding (right click, save file to your computer)
A great debut!
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