Excalibur Fantasy Faire presents... Songs of the Faire Folk

What smashing evening we had last night at Mother Egan's Irish Pub. I didn't really know what to expect of the evening, but I was absolutely delighted with the result.

About a eighty folks came out mostly in garb to kick-off the promotional events for Excalibur Fantasy Faire's sixth year. We started off the evening at 7pm and played an almost "best of" set of bard songs which warmed the way for the evening.

Lo and behold, a camera crew came out. I wasn't entirely sure why, but thanks to Hagar, they came out when he emailed them about our trip to Hollywood for the LOTR Oscar Party which I was surprised to realize is NEXT WEEK!

Well, we made do as they got right in our faces videotaping our show, bumping cameras and Andrew making some hilarious wisecracks, then out we went to chat with them about the event as O'Malarkey got setup.

The interview was a lot of fun and exciting. And we're told it will air This Sunday on KXAN News 36 (though there's a possibility it won't air until Tuesday). We'll be video taping the news program, and I'd appreciate it if you would too in case we miss it.

We got back inside with the last couple songs of O'Malarkey. I was a bit disappointed I missed their set, but they really seemed to get the crowd raging. They've a sound a lot like Gaelic Storm. The size of the band grew since I recorded tracks for them last fall. Very cool music.

Then, along came one of my personal favorites, the Bedlam Bards. To some degree, I consider the Bedlam Bards our mentors. We learned a lot from them in our first couple years at Excalibur. They taught us a lot about putting on a good performance, and we learned a few songs from them as well.

Cedric was a bit under the weather from a throat infection, so I wasn't sure what to expect, but they put on a great show as usual. Cedric is such an amazing fiddler and mandolinist. It really kinda boggles my mind cuz he's come such a long way since we started out.

They laid low on the bawdy stuff last night, instead favoring the Celtic faire music that makes their latest album, "Furious Fancies" such an awesome piece of work, which I hear actually even impressed a few of the local traditional Celtic musicians this past year.

Finally, Hands of Fatima danced up on the stage and mesmerized me eyes, for one. It was a great show all around. The main point was to promote the faire, and although there were a few minor problems in the publicity aspect, overall, I think it was a tremendous success. We gave out a lot of flyers to help promote the festival and got folks excited about this year's faire.

But probably, the most amazing thing of all was that it was on a Wednesday night! Just imagine if we held it on a Saturday or Sunday?!?

Well, I'm really hoping that we'll be able to do that. Andrew and I are throwing around the idea of putting on other big events like this in the summer and maybe a couple more times through the year. Let us know what you think of this idea.

And don't forget to head over to Excalibur Fantasy Faire to pick up season passes that are now on sale for the amazingly low price of just $40!

See ye at the faire!