Ireland well represented at the Eagle's Banjo Event 2015: update

L-r: Daithi Melia, Jens Kruger, Joel Landsberg, Steve Noon,
Cathal Guinan, Jamie McKeogh, Uwe Kruger

A great time seems to have been had by all last Saturday (7 Nov.) at the Eagle Music Shop's Annual Banjo Event at Armitage Bridge, Huddersfield, West Yorks., England. It was an epoch-marking occasion, as the Eagle Music Shop (run by Steve and Joan Noon) is the world no. 1 dealer for Deering banjos, and Greg and Janet Deering were attending to mark forty years of the Deering company.

As the BIB announced a month ago, the Event's musical lineup was headed by the phenomenal Kruger Brothers, with very strong representation from the scene in Ireland: JigJam (seen above with the Krugers and Steve Noon), who played two acclaimed full sets; Pat Kelleher (right) of Dripsey, Co. Cork, who gave a workshop on the long-neck banjo; and Bill Forster (who plays with the Banjaxed Bluegrass Band and Gone to Grass), who gave an intermediate-to-advanced bluegrass banjo workshop.

In addition, the leader of the Old Grey Dogs, who led jams during the event, is Joe McIlvenny - a name that has something of an Ulster ring to it...

UPDATE: See Bluegrass Today for news of 'Beautiful nothing', a new documentary film about the Kruger Brothers made by Dames Don't Care (the duo of Gabriele Weber and Brigitte Bernhard).