Temple Bar Tradfest 2015

Temple Bar Tradfest is once again nearly here. This festival is now on it’s 10th year bringing light in to our January blues. It is also growing in to bigger event every year. But bigger is not always better 😉

Last year we noticed so many people wandering the streets of Temple Bar with instruments looking for sessions to join in. Traditional session has been a very important part of the music scene here in Ireland and is very much responsible for keeping the Traditional music live and kicking. In the early days of the Temple Bar Tradfest the session was part of it, but over the years the pub trail turned in to amplified pub concerts.

So with the immense support from the Porterhouse, where I play with Sliotar most weekends, we got together with few friends and decided to try to revive the traditional session in Temple Bar, which they also call the cultural quarter. We all had an idea it would be a nice thing, but none of us expected the feedback we got. It turned out this was what the people wanted. We get tourists wondering almost daily to tell us this was what they have been looking for all the way through their visit to Ireland, and finally in the Porterhouse they found it.

The session is just musicians playing in the corner of the pub. It is all acoustic, no amps, no microphones and anybody can join in. Our session is now a regular event every Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday from 5-8pm in the Porterhouse. But during the Tradfest we will be there most days 🙂

Also there will be program on the main stage in the Porterhouse as well 🙂 On Thursday the 29th they have from 8.30-10.30pm the wonderful Colm Lynch and from 11pm till closing the legendary Porterhouse stable guitar hero Woodsey. On Friday the 30th of January they have Mundy from 6-8pm, Sliotar from 9-11pm and at midnight the Usual suspects will rock the house until the early hours of Saturday morning. On Saturday 31st I am back there with Sliotar at 9-11pm, followed by Crosstown at midnight. And to finish off the festival on the 1st of February Sliotar will be doing our Sunday set from 6-9pm followed by Jaker. And as I mentioned before, on most days, except Friday, there will be a session downstairs before the music starts upstairs.

You can also find the Official program of the Tradfest HERE

Hope to see you at the festival 🙂

J.P.

The author J.P. Kallio is a singer songwriter
To get EIGHT of his songs for free go HERE