The Westport Folk and Bluegrass Festival 2011
I’ll openly admit to not having heard of this Festival before. I have, however, heard of The Bluestack Mountain Boys, of Little Ass Birds and of Lousiana Joyride who are all performing and so I’m delighted to give this event a shout out.
You have to love that bluegrass and folk, so popular over here but so different to Irish music in ways has its own festival. This runs from June 24 – 26 in Westport, Co Mayo.
This festival is the fifth to take place and started, as the website tells us
as one man’s dream to create a unique festival in Westport.
Originally the aim was to book singer songwriter Jimmy McCarthy for a one-off gig in the town. After several failed attempts to contact him, Uri, the festival producer, decided to continue the momentum and look for specific genre of music to build a festival around.
The music he chose was folk and bluegrass. The Lee Valley String Band from Cork were asked to headline the first festival. Uri then built a weekend line-up around the headline act and the event was great success.
From then on the wheels were in full motion and there was no way back.
This year there are 15 acts performing in 7 venues with all gigs being free except the main show where tickets are €15.
Some of the acts include A Band Like Alice, Brooklyn’s The Dust Busters, Dublin’s Little Ass Birds (watch a video here), the Bluestack Mountain Boys, the Molly Hicks, Galway’s Mad Uncle Harry and the MacEvillys from Mayo.
You can see the full line up with times, locations and more about the bands over on http://westportfolkandbluegrass.com
In the meantime, here’s some bluegrass for you.
