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Sunday, August 29, 2010

Please Ignore The Doomsday Music In The Background

Fall is officially here. I can feel it in my bones. The temperatures have dropped from around 75 degrees to between 50 and 60 in just a week. Therefore, on Saturday night we celebrated the end of summer. We do this every year with a big party, trying desperately to tell ourselves that the 10 months of winter we have ahead of us will be the best time of our life, that we don’t really miss the toes we lose every winter and that the earth looks so much better when you can’t see it for all the snow. Yes, we celebrate the end of summer with fireworks and music, dancing and drinking, and we ignore the heavy sense of doom and despair that builds when hundreds of people gather to say goodbye to those few precious days of warmth.

Luckily, the music this year was nothing short of spectacular. I give you Zelma's band:


John Ryan's Polka

John Ryan’s Polka

It was an outdoors concert, and Zelma is the girl with the fiddle. The one in the middle. (The one on the right, or left, depending on your point of view, is Zeidi whom I’ve mentioned before, but ages ago.) M and I met up with the band before the concert at a local pub where they were drinking whiskey from a jar to calm the nerves. I think they only succeeded in getting a little drunk, but a little case of drunk can only make a concert better.

The Wild Rover had everyone clapping along:

Wild Rover

The Wild Rover

And Flogging Molly’s Drunken Lullabies had everyone singing along and dancing rather drunkenly:

Drunken Lullabies

Drunken Lullabies

That’s all for today, tomorrow I have no more work and will have to start studying so I have a feeling I’ll have lots of time for blogging. I’ll leave you with Zelma’s greeting to you.

“A blind weasel is better than a crossed-eyed fox.”

No one knows why they let Zelma out among people. *
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19 comments:

  1. Amazing concert. Well, really an amazing caleigh. Haven't heard that kind of music since we used to cover the Celtic beat in Toronto.

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  2. “A blind weasel is better than a crossed-eyed fox.” Now that's a horse of a different garage, Ziva. Great, rollickin' music, by the way.

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  3. Frank: They really are amazing, aren't they? I have several more videos that I'll probably post eventually. When you least expect it...


    nonamedufus: Well you know, sticks and stones will burn the bird in your hand.

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  4. Good God, I'm amazed to hear of bunch of Finns and Swedes playing Flogging Molly and Dubliners music, and playing it very well! The Mollys play here in Denver all the time--so much that I once thought they were a local band. Have you also heard The Pogues and the Dropkick Murphys, two of my favorite Irish/Celtic bands?

    The world's a small place, and getting smaller.

    I'd've like to've been there...ringing in the onset of fall and winter.

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  5. The music is fantastic! Thanks for sharing. Now go put on a sweater! I love fiddles!

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  6. MikeWJ: Flogging Molly played at Ruisrock, that festival I wrote about eariler this summer, but sadly it was on Sunday and we couldn't be there that day. I'm very proud of the band; they're amazing. (Like I had anything to do with that.) Anyway, the band did play some Dropkick Murphys yesterday, Shipping Up to Boston was the next-to last song in the set.


    Linda: I'm glad you liked the music! I know that at least a couple of the band members read this blog and they'll be ecstatic to hear it.

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  7. Ziva, out of curiosity, are a lot of women in Finland named with "Z's" to start their first name? Zelda? Zelma? Zeidi? Ziva?

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  8. Zinda: That's a very good question. The short answer would be yes. Everyone is either called Ziva, Zelma or Zeidi, or something beginning with M, like M and Muschu. We don't give out letters for free here, they're very expensive.

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  9. I can't think of a better way to celebrate the end of ten-toed summer and the start of frigid temperatures and body parts falling into single digits.

    Great music!

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  10. Hell, if we are all to meet sometime, it should be in Newfoundland! It's halfway between the middle of nowhere, but I'd think it'd be fun!

    Seriouly, there is quite a lot of Celtic in those vids. Ziva, you are educating us on your culture which appears to be quite diverse, not to mention interesting!

    In case your friends take requests, do they know, "Barnacle Bill the Sailor"?
    ;-)

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  11. Ok, if any of the band are reading this, you guys are awesome! The only thing that, in my very humble opinion, is missing would be another girl with a Z name playing the tin whistle. Other than that though, you guys were amazing!

    Now Ziva, love, since you'll be finished with work and all you'll have to do is study (and really, how much time does that take?!) I suggest you just stay in bed for the next 10 months, all cozy under the covers, with a laptop so you can blog at the same time.

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  12. Lauren: It was a great night, I could almost forget about the freezing horror we're about to face.


    00dozo: Newfoundland? I can't even pronounce that. But at least they have wonderful dogs. We're going to have to ask the band about Barnacle Bill the Sailor, I know I've never heard them sing it, that's for sure. ;)


    Nicky: You're so sweet. Sadly, I think my skills are a little lacking in the tin whistle department, and I haven't played an instrument in front of an audience in about 8 years. I'm having a heart attack just thinking about it. Luckily, the band is pretty complete as they are, the guy on the far left of the stage plays just about every instrument known to mankind and I think he even plays the tin whistle when it's needed. (Comment written from my bed, where I will stay for the next 10 months.)

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  13. Oh my..! I'm so sad I missed the greatest concert EVER!! I was asleep for the whole day...and night... I think the winter took me already... I'm doomed!

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  14. and btw....

    Zelma & Zeidi: YOU GO GIRLS!! *snapping my fingers in a Z*

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  15. Zelma's band is so awesome! I'm glad you posted the videos! I'm jealous of your 50 degree weather, I'd take that over 95 any day!

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  16. Muschu: You're doomed, I've always said it. And you have to come see them the next time they play, or they'll never forgive you and you'll have to stay in Helsinki forever because you'll be too ashamed to ever come back. EVER!


    Jenn: We should really trade climates you and I, I'm so jealous of the warmth!

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  17. hmmm... so you say if I don't come see them the next time I'll have to stay here in Helsinki aka HEAVEN forever?? My, oh my! what shoud I do...W H A T should I do?

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  18. Muschu: Let me rephrase that. If you don't come see them the next time they play, I will send wild dogs to Heaven and they will drag you all the way over here and bite your legs off so that you'll never be able to get back to wonderful Helsinki and you'll be stuck here with me and I'll overwater your plants and only make you food that you hate.

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  19. mwhahahaha... I laugh at you!
    You really don't know me do you? There is no food on the whole planet that i do NOT like!

    This is a win - win situation for me... heaven or prepared food every day?

    AH life is beautiful! B E A U T I F U L ! !

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