September 7, 2010

The Newport Irish festival is a really great little festival. Always a decent line up, not too big and you don’t feel hosed by the grubby, penny grabbers that usually run these type of things.

This year I headed down on the Labor Day Monday and caught the last day of the 3-dayer. Saw about 1/2 the set from the Screaming Orphans, an all girl/sister, trad-pop group from Ireland – decent but way too much paddy wack banter between songs – the type of shite that Irish people think the Yanks love but makes me cringe.

Also caught the tail end of the Tartan Terrors set, a Celtic rock’n’bagpipes outfit from Canada – good music and good banter and some off beat humor.

The Town Pants have become the de facto headlines of the festival and were definitely the band most of the punters were there to see – me included. This was their 4th visit to the Newport festival and 74th day of their present tour so they were well oiled and much anticipated – they did not disappoint. From their opener – The Weight of Words – to their final – Breakfast with St. Swithin – they played fast and loud. They even managed to get in covers of Bad Religion and Iron Maiden and still keep the 7 to 77 set and all the soccer moms and aging rockers in between happy and screaming for more – don’t believe me check out the videos.