Celtic Fling 2009 - The Friday Kick-Off Concert

On Friday, June 26th, Kirsten and I headed out to Manheim, PA for the start of Celtic Fling 2009. We were rolling down the stinkin' PA Turnpike (the road I loathe for its boringness, the road that has spawned many hate poems) when Pam, who was maybe 30 miles ahead of us, called to inform me that she was stuck in traffic because of an accident. Not wanting to sit in traffic, especially not with my lovely car going all Honda on me and overheating recently in traffic, I decided to take the upcoming exit. Thankfully I had a PA map in the car (no idea where it came from as I haven't used a real map in ages) and we figured out a lovely scenic route to the PA Ren Faire grounds that took a bit longer than the Turnpike would have (sans accident), but it was a much nicer drive.

We arrived at the motel, only to discover that, despite the fact Kirsten had booked a room with two double beds back in March, we had a room with one king size bed. This wouldn't be too big of a problem if it was just the two of us. But there were going to be SIX girls in the room. The woman working the desk didn't have another room to put us in (she was unaware of how many girls would be in the room. We kept that on the downlow) so we decided to just deal with what we have.

It could have been worse. Heather and her crew had booked three rooms at this same motel but arrived to discover there were no rooms for them. After many phonecalls and "discussions" with the motel lady, she had one room for them at our motel (the Street Team took that room) and Heather found two rooms at the motel next door. Such unnecessary drama.

After settling ourselves in our room and discovering that the double air mattress I brought along for Jill and Aly, just in case they needed it, just fit between the wall and the bed, and after I had finished having a good long giggle fit at the amusingness of cramming six girls into this one room and at the thought of four of us snuggling in bed (thank goodness it was a king size bed and not a double), we headed over to the Fling.

Oh Celtic Fling. How I adore thee! To make things even more awesome, I found a WHOLE DOLLAR in the pocket of my pants that I had not worn since last summer. Woo!

After doing the "I'm So Going To Sticker You!" dance with Dante (I failed to sticker him. *sad face*), I spotted Joey wandering around nearby. With a sword. Heaven help us. He was also sporting a pretty pink ponytail holder. Very threatening.

Ceann kicked off the Fling. Partway through the set, while Pam, Heather, and I were dancing around off to the side of the stage, Patrick from Ceann saw me and asked, from the stage, "Are you making another video this year?" I gave him a thumbs up and he said, "Are we actually going to be in it this year? Or is it going to be all Scythian with a tiny clip of Ceann again?"

Ha! Patrick should be happy I added that Ceann clip to the Jump Around video. That was a very last minute addition, if I recall correctly. I felt I needed to include them. I am very much amused that 1) Patrick knew I made videos, 2) that he wanted to be included in the new video more than they were in the old one, and 3) that he shared this with all of Celtic Fling from the stage.

Maeghan did the Swashbuckle Shuffle on stage for Ceann to finish up their set.


Then this band that no one had even heard of took the stage. They were okay.

Oh wait, that's not a picture of the band. Oh well. We're much more attractive than them anyway.

Dante wrote a song about Patrick Murphy that the guys performed since Gaelic Storm was there as the headliner that night. Great song!


It started to rain right when Scythian finished their set. Perfect timing. The merch table was uncovered and the Street Team discovered a previously unknown job for them: plastic tarp tent poles.

Here's some video of us being tent poles. Jackie, there's a message for you from me and Heather at the end of the video:


It stopped raining fairly quickly, so Gaelic Storm wasn't delayed. Patrick gave us a spoons solo (after a delayed start, thanks to him talking too much and the crowd not quieting down):


After the show, we headed to Farmers Hope down the road where we played Texas Hold 'Em with the giant playing cards. This time around we didn't use sugar packets for money. We all brought bags of candy, which was a much more welcome substitute for the money. Meaghan won several times.

Back to the motel where Pam, Suzi, Kirsten, and I snuggled on the bed and Jill and Aly had the air mattress on the floor. The room was, in a word, cozy. Here's Jill and Aly on the floor next to my side of the bed. Good to know I had a nice cushion to fall on in case the three in the bed pushed me out.