Familiar faces at Rotterdam Bluegrass Festival

The Boogiemen: (l-r) Arnold Lasseur, Aart Schroevers, Bart van Strien, Robert-Jan Kanis (photo: Andre Dieterman)

Thanks to Gijs van de Burgt of the Rotterdam Bluegrass Festival for the press release giving the complete lineup of this year's event, to be held on the Noordplein, Rotterdam (NL), on the weekend 23-25 June. It's an impressive lineup, including a strong contingent of US and Canadian musicians (some already known to Irish audiences) - which underlines the prominence that the press release gives to our old friends the Blue Grass Boogiemen (above) together with Dutch singer/ songwriter Douwe Bob.

Four weeks before Rotterdam, the Boogiemen will be playing at Bluegrass Omagh 2023 (26-28 May). At previous Omagh festivals (and everywhere they've played in Ireland since 1997 at Dunmore East) they've always been audience favourites, and it'll be good to see and hear them again.

Also on the bill at Rotterdam: Long Way Home (Owen Schinkel and Kylie Kay Anderson), who were on last year's Omagh lineup. Having injected a welcome amount of energy into the scene here since 2020, they relocated last November from north Cork to the Netherlands, Owen's homeland, but hope to be back to visit Ireland before too long.

© Richard Hawkins