Tag: music

Once

Published on by HeliLeave a comment

I had never seen the movie or not even heard about the musical before Sean’s sister went to see it and I started to notice the ads on the buses. That’s quite strange because I really like musicals and also the movies which are full of music and that’s why I try to get myself acquainted with news about musicals. Somehow I managed to miss that one and even before we started to watch the movie I didn’t actually realise that it was happening in Dublin and it was a love story between a Chech girl and an Irish guy. If I had known that before I had probably watched the movie much before. But it’s always nice to discover that there are still a lot of nice things that you can do or see or read for the first time and that makes them much more special.

OnceWe started with the movie and two days later went to see the musical and I loved them both. I really loved the movie because I always love the movies which have been set in Dublin and it’s so nice to recognise all these places. It came out that I had heard some of the songs and I was very happy for the tickets that we got for a present. And this was my first time to go to the theatre in Dublin 🙂

Of course, I couldn’t miss the possibility to go on the stage, where they had their bar which was open before the show and during the intermission. And the show was really brilliant – all that music, cast and the whole stage which actually was the same all the time but with small details, they managed to change the places and made you believe that it took place in several different locations. All the cast was really amazing – I was even thinking that some of them must really be of Chech origin because they played the Chech music so authentically and even talked with an accent but looking them up from the program it seemed that they were all Irish. We both enjoyed it a lot and as the Cork people who were sitting behind us and told that they were doing it for the third time already, I’d love to do it once more one day.

2017 started with Music

Published on by HeliLeave a comment

The New Year Festival went on also on the very first day of the New Year and we were not too lazy to get ourselves out to see what was going on. And a lot was going on, especially beside the St Stephen’s Green, where different groups performed to celebrate the New Year despite the cold weather.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA
Enjoying the first Concert of 2017

At first, we listened to the Garda Band, which was very cheery and joyful. It seemed that the members were from all over the Ireland and enjoyed themselves a lot. And we enjoyed them too, we even didn’t mind the cold and frosty weather. Especially we enjoyed the  WMCA song when they asked some children to join them on the stage and make the movements. They knew perfectly how to perform.

 

After the Gardas there was a Gospel Choir which was really talented. Their repertory consisted of rock and pop classics, like Led Zeppelin, Queen and other well-known stuff. At the end, there was really cold but as they were so good we didn’t want to miss it and stayed till the very end.

Belvedere College Annual Sleepout

Published on by HeliLeave a comment

Belvedere College Annual Sleepout is an old tradition and it means that a group of Belvedere College past and present students spend two nights sleeping out on the streets of Dublin and collecting money for the charity, especially for the homeless. With sleeping on the street, the students experience how does it feel if you really have to spend your nights outside but at the same time with the help of the public they also raise money for those people who are homeless.

The boys who stay out for the night are the senior year students. The younger ones give their part with the Christmas Carols concert in front of GPO. I was happy to enjoy their singing and the marvellous performance of their conductor for the second time already.

12 Days till My Christmas

Published on by HeliLeave a comment

As there are just 12 days left to my next trip to Dublin, this song seemed really suitable to upload. Hope that all these 12 days will bring me as much joy as for the one in the song. I can count the tickets to the Mamma Mia musical that I bought today for myself, my son and his girlfriend, as a partridge in a pear tree but taking the French teacher whom I’m going to meet tomorrow as two turtle doves can probably be much more difficult, I guess. Unless he’s going to bring me two good French wines 🙂

Adams Family

Published on by HeliLeave a comment

The fabulous school musical at Belvedere College with unbelievable talented children. It was absolutely not less good as any other musical in London and I was so happy that I got this opportunity to go to see it. Just wish that once I can go and see the one where Little Sean is playing as well. Actually, I would like to see them all, I just like such kind of school performances so much – just ask me or give me the tickets 😀

The Fiddler on the Roof

Published on by HeliLeave a comment

I found the  version from “The Fiddler on the Roof” from 1989 when Helgi Sallo played Golde. This time, in 2016, just after her 75th birthday some days ago, she was the Matchmaker and her daughter Liina was playing Golde. It was good that I had time to give some guidelines about the familiar relations of these two actresses, so it was interesting to Sean to watch them together on the stage. He noticed the things that I didn’t and as the musical had Eglish subtitles up on the wall and as he has seen this musical lots of time, and as we watched the movie together at Christmas time, it was easy for him to catch up. And I am happy that he liked it – but the musical was really well done, with such a good choreography, decorations, and good actors that it was impossible not to like it.

After the musical, we had a light dinner in a Babulja cafe near the Opera House. Babulja is a Russian food cafe and has also a restaurant part, but we had to drive back home to Haapsalu and so we chose the cafe. We tried seafood, plinis, which are small Russian pancakes and of course the Pavlova cake, which was the most delicious Pavlova, I have ever tried. It was so tasty, that I even forgot to take a photo 😀

I have eaten the whole Pavlova

 

August Blues Festival in Haapsalu

Published on by HeliLeave a comment

The August blues festival in Haapsalu was already the third for us together. Last year we had to miss it and so it was nice and fresh feeling to jump into all this music, parties and fun again. I have been going to this festival so many times, that it’s hard to count already, it has been held in Haapsalu 22 times already and has become one of our most famous music events and there are lots of fans from different countries who come back every year. 3-13932816_10205159865835578_2791810301530168709_n

For example, our Finnish friends with whom we have special Festival Traditions and so we start our Festival every year from Riika’s garden and then head to some nice place to have the Festival Dinner and get into the right mood.

August Blues Festival starts on Friday with lots of concerts all over the town but the main events take place in the Castle Yard, inside the old episcopal Castle, and I am pretty sure that the medieval walls give this festival a special taste and vibe. When all the performers have been on stage the party continues i the Blues club, which has always been the old Culture House from the 70-s, where some not so well known bands are playing and sometimes they form totally different bands from the musicians who are there. this year we had even two Blues clubs with two after parties, the other one took place at the Old Cinema, which is kind of a night club now, but years ago it was a real cinema.

The festival continues on Saturday with lots of concerts in cafes, on the streets, and of course, in the Castle Yard, and ends with afterparties at the night clubs. So everyone can find something, even if you are not interested in buying the Festival Pass but want to see just some of the musicians.

From Galway Girl to Molly Malone

Published on by HeliLeave a comment

In some reason, I have always loved Irish music, long before my feet touched Ireland and long before I even imagined that it could become my second home. I loved the long sad stories of “Molly Malone” and “Danny Boy”, the happy melodies of “Galway Girl”, “Whiskey in the Jar” and “Wild Rover” and the very old “It’s a long way to Tipperary”  and I even didn’t know where Tipperary really was. Somehow these melodies suited me and I wanted to play them in my English lessons when talking about English speaking countries.

Now I have had some nice experiences to be in real Irish pubs with real Irish music and I must say that whenever I hear them playing “Wild Rover”, which seems to be the most played song, and even if I know that it’s the most touristic performance in Temple Bar in the middle of the day, I feel that I want to sit down and stay. But one of my best experiences has been still in a pub in Duncannon, where the musicians just sat around the table and played, sometimes drank beer, and played again, some locals joined them and sang and the whole pub sang with them and they all knew the words. that was amazing.

So on our second Irish Dance evening in Parliament Hotel Pub with our friends from Estonia, I was very happy that besides the dancers there were also musicians singing and playing. And after our trip to Galway, the “Galway Girl” was just the right piece of music to listen to.

The evening ended at the Bank, which is another remarkable pub in Dubin city centre, located in the real old bank and absolutely worth to visit. The interior is luxurious and a bit royal in spite that it is a real pub where you don’t have to order anything else than a pint of beer or cider. So with 2 days we managed to visit three different pubs, definitely much more than usually with three weeks 😀

 

Irish Dancing

Published on by HeliLeave a comment

Everyone who comes to Ireland wants to see Irish Dancing, which probably became really famous after Riverdance performed on Eurovision in 1994. That’s why my friends who visited us in July asked us for taking them to see Irish Dance. So we carried out a big online search to see which different places are offering Irish Dance evenings and which of them are not so awfully touristic and expensive. As the Church is in our neighbourhood and despite being a real touristic place is still worth to see, we suggested them two options – the Church and the Parliament Hotel and they picked both of them 🙂

So on a nice warm summer evening, when our friends had just come from a Viking Splash Tour, which they loved a lot, and we had just arrived from our Cork visit, we ended up at the Church and enjoyed some good Irish dancing with a nice dinner, just like any other tourists, and as the other tourists, I also made a video and uploaded it on my Facebook page, where the Curch had also liked it.

Laya City Spectacular – the biggest free summer festival in Ireland

Published on by HeliLeave a comment

06-IMG_3077

The Street performers festival Laya City Spectacular has been taking place in Dublin and Cork for 11 times already and I have been visiting the last three of them. As I always come at the beginning of July, I have spent my first weekend visiting that festival, taking place at Merrion Square park. It is mostly meant for families and children, except my very first time in 2014, when they had also two days full of music – different young musicians from Dublin – who performed inside the park. Now it is mostly for different street performers like acrobats, magicians, jugglers and painters all over the world.

Performer from Australia
Streetfood from the red bus
Muumipapa’s Lighthouse
Huge tractor for jumping
MaSamba
Nice Statue 🙂
Paul Morocco and Ole
Stomptown Brass

This year there was also a big street food festival JustEat going on beside the park. The whole street was covered with a grass carpet and different kind of food was sold from the stalls. There was also a small stage for the musicians, but as it was straight on the street, where people were passing by, it was a bit too loud and the musicians were also not so good as they were at the 2014 festival.

As the weather was really nice, we spent a lot of time there, walking around, watching the performers and listening to the music and got even caught by a photographer who asked if he can take photos of us for the JustEat webpage. So now we have the proof that we really took part at the festival 🙂

Click HERE and see all the pictures taken by the photograph Allen Kiely from Akdigital – Digital Agency photo.video.design.