Keltisch Festival - no, we're not Irish, but we sure do love our reels in Hellevoetsluis!

Last night I experienced one of my favorite evenings of the musical year: the Celtic Festival in my local theater, Theater Twee Hondjes. (Two Dogs, from the famous Dutch poem by Godfried Bomans: "I sit here looking out my window, being bored out of my skull, I wish I was two dogs, so that we could play together". Somehow it doesn't work that well in English).

I have been going for years, and it has always been fun. It has given me the opportunity to get acquainted with great singers and bands. Most of them aren't that well known, many are struggling to make ends meet, and most are competent and sometimes even wonderful (and absolutely underrated).

Last night we saw three bands: O'Dream, The Ben Reel Band (from Ireland) and Eaden. In the small concert room there was a Dutch band called Slán, but we skipped that one. A person needs to have some time to go to the loo and get the fresh beers, right?

O'Dream ( 2 Dutchmen and an Irishman) turned out to have dream voices, blending in so well together that it made the hairs in the nape of my neck stand up. When they played my favourite song by Albert Niland (The Kings of Kilburn High Road) and managed to do it justice, I vowed to look them up on YouTube for you. And couldn't find them...booh!

The second band was the surprise of the evening: Ben Reel from Ireland, who got the women dancing. What a voice! What an energy! And, important this, he writes his own material. The song that blew me away started with a Buddhist chant, telling us about darkness and light, and it was gorgeous.

He could have played all night, as far as I was concerned. But all too soon he had to stop and make way for the last band. He ended with a romping Ronnie Hawkins-like piece. Loved it. So...yup, I looked him up for you as well. And: yaaaaaaaay, found a lot of his stuff on YouTube! Ben Reel

The last band was another Dutch band, called Eaden. They didn't have the luckiest of nights: their drummer was in hospital, their bass player had a bad back, their singer was elsewhere and would be for some time, so they had to make do...and it showed. Nothing terrible, and the violinist (Van Es) was marvelous, and brought tears to my eyes with a slow air. But the lead singer was the weakest link, in our opinion. Sorry guys. The lead guitarist sang two songs, and we thought they should have let him sing all of them. But the atmosphere was wonderful, and Eaden got the women dancing as well. 

You have guessed. I've looked them up for you. The videos I could find

show the (now ill)singer and another lead guitarist...so it's not really what we saw last night. But perhaps you'll like it anyway.

Eaden