Celtic Connections 6

Danny Kyle Open Stage

Friday, January 26, 2007

We have found that the Friday and Saturday Open Stage events are by far the best. Obviously more people go, so they line up the better acts to play then. The rest of the week is usually only one or two good acts and the rest are okay (although all are better than I could even hope to be musically.) Here is what we saw last night...




Rapach was first on stage. They were a wonderful Gaelic singing duo. We have come to love Gaelic music. We never know what they are singing, but it always sounds so lovely. For all we know they could be talking of death and despair, but it sounds so nice. And most are incredibly upbeat.




Maggie Anderson & Brian (no idea who he was, but he played the guitar for this girl and the next.) were the next to hit the stage and were spectacular. Maggie is a 14 year old fiddle player from the Shetland Islands. She played amazing well and was so humble too. It was a really wonderful to sit and listed to her play.


Erin Sandison & Brian (same guitar player as before) are again from the Shetland Islands. Like Maggie, she is also 14 years old but sings. And she CAN SING. She had an amazing voice and will hopefully go on to do great things. (Along with Maggie)


The next group was 'La'. As you can imagine from their name, it was a group on four near 16 year old girls. They thought that they were spectacular and talked through everyone else's performance and they were not all that wonderful to listen to.


McArdle Sisters were the last to play of the night. They were five girls (sisters of course... hence the name) all ranging from probably 22 to 14. Mike is sure that the dad is going crazy and definitely has gray hair and sits by the door with a shot gun since they are all of dating age. He has stated that if our first three children are girls, we're stopping. No need to try for a boy he does not want to have to worry about five girls when they start dating. Either way, they were a lovely group to listen to.