Tuesday, September 11, 2007

Green Lane Irish Festival 2007


I had never heard of the Green Lane Scottish Irish Festival until I read a myspace bulletin posted by the band Barleyjuice. Even then, I assumed that its "Montgomery County" location would be somewhere urban.

When I looked at a map I realized that it wasn't too far from Reading and quickly made plans to attend. This one is the 8th year and appears to be the first time they have tried a three day run.
The 2006 edition brought out 130,000 people. Thats a lot.

The festival surrounds two sides of a large lake and you really need to allow an entire day to explore the vendors, music, demonstrations, games,etc.

Our main mission was to hear Barleyjuice. Not seeing any signs prohibiting alcohol we carried a plastic cooler to our campchair spot and were about to enjoy some bottles of cold, delicious Reading Beer when we realized that NOBODY was drinking beer. NONE. At a celtic festival.

Eeek.

So, we got some paper cups and kept it low key and nobody complained and we had a great time. I bought a $25 Guinness rugby ball and a $7 Jameson bar towel. I only have the vendors I saw about 20% of the time they deserved as there was a great variety of quality goods.

The band was excellent as was Burning Brigette Cleary. I did catch the obvious bust in one of their songs when they asked the crowd to "raise your water bottles".

The amateurish website ( http://glpsifestival.org/ ) says there are 60 campsites available but all were taken. I think it would be a complete blast to camp here.

I highly recommend this event. Just bring your own beer and be careful or drink in the nearby grassy parking lot. There are a zillion kids here so careful discretion, as anywhere, is a must.

Good job to all who organized this one. Put a bit more effort into your website but other than that it was top notch.