The Day After Yesterday

CiS Cultural fact #43: St. Patrick's day is kind of a big deal around here. I suppose that could just be the perspective of the hundred or so people that showed up to the pub last night. Maybe for the rest of the country, not so much. We had a good time though. Here are some pictures from the band that played "Traditional Irish and Scottish Music" (Hence the kilts and bagpipes). The name of the band is Pure Malt (http://www.puremalt.nu/) and they aren't bad, considering they are all Swedish. We bought their cd, 60 krowns sounded like a good price, until we realized that there was only 5 tracks. D'oh!

The crowd was really into it and knew the words to most of the songs the guys played. It kind of blows my mind that people were so into this and singing along to music in another language. The Pogues were quite popular here it seems. And the band played that Proclaimers song that sticks in your head for weeks at a time, twice.

We met an Irish dude that lives here and he was in the same boat. He told us that he went to a cultural celebration here and went to the "Authentic Irish Music" part and found there was only two guys, one on guitar and the other on fiddle, and they were both Swedish. He said they were pretty good but had some thick accents, like dropping their "J"s when they sang. He said he was sure if he should clap along or cry, but he thought it was pretty cool that people dig his culture and music here. That does make you feel all warm and cozy inside. It got me thinking of what an American culture celebration would look like, and then I remember that most of the television and movies are American, Coke flows like water, and you can find a McDonald's or Burger King on every 5 blocks (although still no Starbucks surprisingly). Oh and they have demonstrations against US foreign policy every few weeks.

But back to the band. The guy in the middle is pretty intense, makes a lot faces when he plays. The bagpiper was pretty impressive. Not only did he play the bagpipes but the banjo, lyre, and assorted penny and tin whistles. Also our friend was quite taken by him.








The pub was pretty quiet for the first couple hours we were there but then picked up steam as the night went on. There was plenty of Guinness and green beer and whisky, so by the end of the night, some people were pretty hammered, like this dude in the Celtic gear (representing Scotland on St.Patrick's Day). Also the moshing started towards the end, with people crashing into tables and other people. This guy ended up crashing into the band and another guy crashed into a table and got a bloody nose.






We had a good time. We had planned to stay only for a couple hours because, well it was Monday and Ragen had to work today, but we ended staying until 2:00. That meant the buses stopped running so we had a nice stroll home in the light snow. That's another nice thing about Uppsala, you can feel pretty comfortable walking through the city at 2:00 in the morning. Waking up in the morning is another story. So if anyone wants to come out and see how the Swedes do St. Patrick's day let us know, we're in.