Despite the disappointing Bank Holiday weather and the fact that Alejandro Escovedo, one of the main attractions of the Carlsberg Kilkenny Rhythm & Roots Festival, pulled out at the eleventh hour, this year's event was notable for many things - not least being the amount of pointy cowboy boots walking up and down the streets of Kilkenny.
Now in its sixth year, the festival has developed from a mini-series of gigs operated in a low-key manner to a bona fide cultural event on the Irish arts calendar.
Due to an infectious sense of enthusiasm on the parts of the organisers and an eloquent word of mouth that has talked the US alt.country scene into checking it out on a regular basis, the Rhythm & Roots Festival has finally come into its own as a must-see event. Music featured comes under the Americana/alt.country umbrella: country, blues, folk, rockabilly, zydeco, western swing. Alongside the mostly US artists that visit the festival is a healthy list of admission-free Irish acts (including the Mary Stokes Band, Lee Valley String Band, Niall Toner, Rye River Band, Lynch Mob and Two Time Polka). Factor in the compact size of Kilkenny, where the pub/music venues are often side by side, and you have a cultural and customer friendly festival that takes some beating.
According to co-organiser Kirsty Fitzsimons, this year's event is the best yet in the festival's history. "All the ticketed shows have sold out, with events at the Ormonde Hotel and the Watergate theatre proving to have had particularly strong appeal. There's no doubt this year benefited from having the strongest line-up to date, which came about because we started booking acts earlier than normal. We seem have got the balance right this year, too, with the likes of Buddy Miller, Jeff Finlan, Laura Cantrell, Paul Burch, and Hem keeping the song-oriented fan happy and bands such as the Sabrejets getting them out of the pub and dancing on the streets."
If this year's event was noticeably different it was through the largely high-quality range of American and Canadian acts. While by no means hugely successful in mainstream terms, the likes of Laura Cantrell, Paul Burch, Buddy Miller, Hem, Suzie Ungeleider, Mendoza Line and Jeff Finlan have merely a few more years to go before they, too, are placed outside the budgetary remit of the festival organisers. It is this sense of potential stardom, and the fact that music fans can see the acts rack up their own CDs and T-shirts before a gig, that makes Kilkenny what it is: an event by and for music fans.
"Kilkenny is where it's at," sums up American musician Paul Burch.
