No one, and I mean no one, goes to TribFest to be cool. After all, it's hard to look cool dancing to the music of Joe Dolan, ABBA, Tom Jones, Cher or Queen, well, maybe Queen, but... No, people go to TribFest to party, to listen to great music and most of all, to have fun. Fun, that's the most important part of a festival, and it was in abundance this year! The festival was a three day affair this time out and, for the first time, kicked off with a night dedicated to hard rock and metal, featuring IE/DC (AC/DC), Live Lizzy (Thin Lizzy), Whiplash (Metallica) , Guns Reloaded (Guns n' Roses), and Legendary (Bon Jovi). Was it loud? Yes, yes it was. Did it rock? Most certainly! Were the leather clad crowd entertained? Most definitely. What a way to kick off TribFest! Live Lizzy Whiplash Legendary Guns Reloaded IE/DC Night two of TribFest was a much more relaxed affair with sets from Mairead Rooney (Shania Twain), The Classic Beatles (The Beatles), Will Power (Joe Dolan)
I hadn't been to Kilkenny in ages, so, when I heard that Stockton's Wing were going to be playing Ballykeeffe Amphitheatre, emails were sent and plans were made! I was looking forward to the gig for a number of reasons. The first one being that I'd never seen Stockton's Wing perform live before. I'd seen Mike Hanrahan live on multiple occasions, but never the full band. Secondly, I was going to Ballykeeffe Amphitheatre and I'd wanted to go there since I first heard of the venue. After the bad weather of the last few weeks, I was constantly checking the hourly forecast on Yr.no (Norwegian weather app). It's normally very accurate, so, when it said it would stop raining at 8:00pm that night, I believed it, but I still packed my waterproofs, just in case... I arrived at the venue, nestled in an old slate quarry twenty minutes outside Kilkenny, got set up and awaited the opening act, Burnchurch . I knew nothing about them, but Mike had told me they were