Only five hundred miles away from home
By road, it’s less than a day’s drive, but musically I live a world away from my roots. If I was to depend on local media, or the choice in the record shop, I’d never hear the sounds of my culture, with one exception. This has been ECMA night, and CBC brought me two hours of a great musical weekend. Thank you.
There was less “net coverage” this year, although I did watch a short clip with Rose Cousins and Jenn Grant this afternoon, compliments of Radio UPEI. I guess it still isn’t easy to convince the industry (both telecomm and music) that there are people who really want those “fixes” that could be so simple to provide, in a different time and place.
The show was different this year. The Celtic Mafia was invisible for the first hour; we could have been in Saskatoon, for the Maritimeness of the show, but after the break we came back to a tribute to Dutch Mason, Denny Doherty and John Allan Cameron that brought tears to my eyes. From there through to the end we were on more familiar ground.
On other notes, Ashley “Fiddle Man” MacIsaac found another “Fiddle Man” and decided to share bows from this point onward. Dermot O’Reilly from Ryan’s Fancy died yesterday. He was one of those that I had the pleasure of meeting, long ago, and who showed that knowing fifteen verses to a traditional song was very cool. So there we have it; a wedding and a wake to close out the weekend.
