Brintaal Celtic Folk Festival

The Brintaal Celtic Folk Festival is a Celtic-themed music festival that takes place over four days in Cismon del Grappa, in northern Italy.
The name Brintaal comes from the Brenta River, in fact the festival area is on the this riverside, which starts in Trentino Alto Adige and runs through the Veneto region, passing through Padua, until it flows into the Adriatic Sea.

I attended the festival with my girlfriend and three of our friends. Before arriving there, we spent the morning at the Esse music store, a huge musical instrument shop that is a musicians' paradise.

For lunch we stopped at Lake Corlo. A wonderful place for a picnic and a nice panoramic walk. A bit of relax under the shade of the trees. We wanted to go around the lake on a pedal boat but we were a bit tired and didn't have enough time. Unfortunately we didn't even manage to take a swim because we didn't want to miss anything of the festival. Since we had to arrive in time to find a parking spot and set up our tents before it got dark, we left in a bit of a hurry.

As I expected, the designated parking lot was already full when we arrived, so we emptied the car of all our things and I had to drive around the small mountain village to find a parking spot.
The camping area was in the middle of the woods, a perfect place to shelter from the heat and avoid the sun beating down on the tent the next morning.

We finally arrive at the festival area. The area is equipped with several kiosk bars, well stocked with various types of craft or commercial beer. The first kiosk you come across also sells cider and mead. For food, there are two choices: on one side hamburgers and arrosticini (a typical sheep meat skewer); on the other a big tent where you can order more elaborate dishes, pasta, meat, cheese, desserts and coffee.

I must say that we did well to bring food from home because the wait was very long and we would have still been queuing for food when the concerts started. In the rest of the space there were many stalls selling the typical products of these festivals: handmade clothing and jewelry, incense, stones, accessories, books and furniture, and other things related to esotericism.

me and my pirate outfit, ahoy!

And so we find ourselves ready under the stage when the Saturday headliner band plays: Happy Ol' Mc Weasel, a Celtic punk band from Slovenia.
The show was exactly as we thought it would be: pure energy and fun, moshpit but with that desire to dance and jump that you only find in this musical context. It is one of the few cases in which I fully appreciate the music even if I don't know the songs, because the important thing is to let yourself be caught by the rhythm and move all together.

The peak of the evening was definitely when the band played Whiskey in the jar first and to conclude, a celtic punk cover of Cotton Eye Joe, with a break in which they quote All the small things by Blink 182! What a show!

After a moment of rest, a second band starts playing near the food area where a small secondary stage was set up. The band's called Lennon Kelly. Always the same genre but with a more pirate twist, ahrrr!
With a ton of tiredness in our bodies, even this time we don't spare ourselves and continue dancing and moshing, sweaty and exhausted.

The evening continues by making friends with a few people and so at 3 am we set off to return to the camping area. Here we are invited by our new friend Vlad to play a jam session with his guitar and my new ukulele bought that morning for the occasion. The music slowly attracts other people with various instruments -- mostly percussions -- who join us. And so the music continues to resonate in the dark forest until almost 6 am.

On Sunday morning my friends wanted to do another round of the stalls to do some shopping, so my girlfriend and I took advantage of the opportunity to look for a way to get to the river. The accesses to the river were closed for safety reasons (the current is strong and if you are not careful you can be swept away or hurt yourself) but we managed to find a path without being seen.

look at the view behind me, not at my missing abs

What can I say: bathing in the fresh water in the morning was truly invigorating! It took away all my tiredness and sleepiness. And the view was truly amazing.

Then we went back home ahah 😄

Well, this was my first weekend experience for this community, I hope it made you smile. There will be many more to come. So see you next time!

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Hey, I make music too! If you're curious about who I am and what I do you can visit my website harbiter.com or my Instagram