02 September 2010
On the banks of the famous Mississippi River is the little quaint town of Dubuque in Iowa. This is the 5th Year of the Dubuque Irish Hooley and its certainly a great event! We had the pleasure of performing after the Celtic Rock legends from the USA 'Seven Nations' and then we were joined onstage by the girls from the Cascade Dance Troupe - the best in Iowa! Thanks to Alise and the girls for their hard work!
The band stayed in the amazing Hotel Julien where it seemed like we had our own personal pool and hot tub! and we enjoyed a fabulous meal at the Star Brewery!
On the Sunday, we were treated to a magnificent afternoon of cruising down the Mississippi on some boats drinking cold beer...Does life get any better? Thank you to Jerry and Angie and Greig and Diane for allowing us on the boats. Thanks also to Michael, Suzanne, Michelle, Joe and all the volunteers for making it a fun weekend!
More pictures on our Facebook!
Remember Remember the 17th October!!!
Join the Kilted Generation!
01 September 2010
Another successful weekend!
After our party time in Racine, a group of weary Chillis arrived late on Thursday to Peoria in Illinois. But after a good night's sleep, we were up fresh on the Friday morning to get ourselves set up and ready for the evening show. It was pretty hot weather and hard work to keep the pipes in tune with Gary's piano! The Erin Feis in Peoria is in a lovely setting right on the waterfront of the Peoria Lake! There were plenty of events happening during the day with good bands and irish dancing! And there was a fantastic crowd at night for us who were extremely enthusiastic! That was the first event we sold our new Green T Shirts too, so it was good to see a few people wearing them!
We received a great review in the PJ Star
here
Thanks to John Martin, Debs and the whole team there for a great festival!
27 August 2010
Awwwwlllllrrrriggghhhtttt!!
In an american accent, is the quote of the tour so far!! We learned this from Timothy the Irish Leprechaun at Milwaukee!
Gary and Dougie especially have this down to a tee!
After a couple of relaxing days off sorting our laundry out etc...We found ourselves in a place called Racine where we played an amazing informal gig at McAuliffe's Irish Bar! Thanks to big J J McAuliffe for the invite!
The crowd were in top form and were in particularly good voice with a full rendition of the Bonnie Banks of Loch Lomond and our new favourite song...'Teach me How to Dougie'....which we sing on the bus in honour of Dougie McCance, who has acquired the name here of Dodgie McChance!.......Long Story :-)
In Peoria, Illinois tonight and then Dubuque tomorrow!
In Dubuque we are going to be joined on stage by the Cascade Cheerleading Team!! Yee Haa!!
The band is still in Gym mode....so I hope you all notice a difference on stage during our October gigs in Scotland
Here is Gary with Timothy the Leprechaun!
21 August 2010
What Made Milwaukee Famous.............is actually the IrishFest!
This is the 30th Year and it was a pleasure to be asked back. The weather has been somewhat Scottish although to the extremes!
Either it's really hot or it's torrential (and I mean torrential!!) rain.
Nice to meet up with our friend's from Gaelic Storm and we are looking forward to joining them during their gig tonight for a number!
Also here are the fantastic La Bottine Souriante, who despite the weather were amazing last night.
The Chilli Pipers are looking fitter than ever with Gary O Hagan dragging us to the Gym every day!
Here's a flavour of Milwaukee Irish Fest
21 August 2010
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Bill Millin, 1923-2010
The piper who famously played on the beaches of Normandy during the first wave of the Allied Forces' invasion on June 6, 1944, has died in Devon, England, at the age of 88 after a stroke.
A native of Glasgow, Millin's playing on the beach was at the command of the famously forthright Lord Lovat, Commander of the 1st Special Service Brigade, which was one of the first to land on Sword Beach in 1944. Lovat ordered Millin to play to rally the troops, in defiance of an order that pipers should not play since they would be left vulnerable.
Millin's courageous playing is commemorated at Normandy with a life-size statue donated by the people of Colleville-Montgomery, France, unveiled in June of this year.
His pipes, kilt, beret and knife are now in the National War Museum of Scotland.
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11 August 2010
Everyone in the Chilli Family is very excited about the new CD due for release on the 17th October!
There are some truly amazing tracks and it is more diverse than ever before.
We just have all the decisions such as, which track to start with etc.. to get through.
Highlight of the CD so far is our new arrangement of Snow Patrol's 'Chasing Cars', which I am sure will get a great reaction!
October gigs to market the CD in Scotland to be announced very soon!!
07 August 2010
Wacken Festival in Germany!
The world's biggest Heavy Metal Festival with Iron Maiden, Alice Cooper, Motley Crue and The Red Hot Chilli Pipers on the bill!
We were certainly a little more nervous than usual, we had never played in front of a full metal crowd of moshers and crowd surfers..
There were people as far as the eye could see!
We always expect a good reaction but we never expected the amazing reaction we got here..
Check it out!
02 August 2010
Everyone in the band can all remember the amazing reception we received at Speyfest in 2008...perhaps the loudest crowd ever! and to be honest we were worried that it couldn't be repeated!
Well.....It was surpassed!!! I can't even describe how it feels to hear a reaction like that from stage!
We can't wait to play there again, it is certainly in my top 3 of gigs.
Nick the firestarter is doing a great job on Guitar! he's an amazing player and he loves bagpipes!!
The band is in a big starliner just now doing a week tour of Germany. Played the 10th anniversary of the Fehraltorf Festival last night and then another appearance on German TV tomo! Its amazing how smelly these buses can get after a day or two!
The big one is on Wednesday!!
The Wacken Festival...one of the biggest heavy metal festivals in the world. Google it!
27 July 2010
Everyone is sad to see the Gman move on to pastures new and we all wish him luck with his new ventures and thank him for the good times!
Our stand in guitarist, Nicki Hell (The Firestarter), did a great job filling some very big boots...we look forward to a few more gigs coming up with Nicki, and I'm sure he'll be loved by you too!
Thanks again to the people of Aviles for another great night at their festival on Friday!
Check out some highlights here from the punters perspective:
We've always found the people of Asturias to be very welcoming and passionate about their Bagpipes.
The Festival in Ghent, I would describe as being like the Edinburgh Festival....the whole town is taken over with music on every corner and a really great vibe...
I'd love to do that festival again!
Its so so so busy just now!!! We are barely sleeping!
In the studio at the moment finishing and adding to the new CD.....Its going to be Epic!
Thanks to our good friend Lorne McDougall for his help in arranging and producing!
Remember Remember the 17th October!!!
Off to Switzerland and Germany next week..speak to you soon!
28 April 2010
So, it's 8am and we're sitting in the green room at the Sat.1 tv studio in Berlin waiting to go on again, we've been here since about 4.30 am!! And considering we didn't get to bed last night till after midnight, we're doing pretty well! (that wasn't even because we were partying or anything, just the time we got back from the gig!)
Our first full day here in Germany was Monday, and with nothing much to do we just made use of the day, sorting things out and getting ready for gigs - re-hemping the pipes, tuning the drums, and our sound engineer Joe even got his soldering iron out and did some repairs to our radio mic systems. On Tuesday morning we had another early start for a breakfast tv show, Morgenmagazin, which you can see if you go to the website, and after that we travelled to Leverkusen for our first gig. This was a smallish venue, converted from a cinema, it only held 500 but it was sold out and a good and enthusiastic crowd. This was definitely the best start to the tour that we could have hoped for and made sure all our spirits were high. Then we travelled from there to Hamburg the next day and played in a very cool venue that used to be a munitions factory. We had been told that maybe a crowd in Hamburg would be more reserved but this was definitely not the case as the 900 strong crowd rocked out in Fabrik!
After another short sleep, we jumped back into the Chillibago (yes, we brought that to Germany too!) and travelled to Berlin, on the way an accident brought the normally fast flowing Autobahn to a complete standstill, but it did allow us to get in a quick photo opportunity! We finally reached Berlin and here we played at the Columbia Club, another very nice venue and another great crowd, possibly even more raucous than the first two. Our record company boss Neil reminded us of the old adage that sometimes the third day can be tough after having such a good first two gigs, but yet again we seem to buck the trend and had a really good gig, we're definitely getting into the swing of things now! Also, the G-mans German is really improving, we're all sure he will be fluent by the end of the tour, and not as "katastrophal" as he tells the crowds at the moment!
As the Berlin gig was a later start, we didn't get back to the hotel till just about midnight and just went straight to our beds to try and look fresh for the Fruhstucks Fernsehen (breakfast TV) this morning. I'm not sure it really worked but the wonders of make up ensure we're all looking our best and of course we always enjoy these things and smile our way through! We've been on a couple of times already and just waiting to do our last spot now. I think the best part has to be that the show has it own resident British Bulldog named Lotte, and as a homage to the G-man it's wearing a bright red wig!
So we're looking forward to getting the next tv spot done so we can get back to the hotel for a couple of hours sleep before we head off for Rostock, where we have an instore appearance at the Saturn music store and then the gig in in the Moya Concerts and Dancehall. I think it's safe to say that we're making quite a large impact on the Germans!
Joining us for the start of the tour and acting as tour manager has been Petr Pandula, our German promoter who, along with his team at Magnetic Music, has been organising the tour for us. We must say a huge thankyou to him for all his hard work in helping us getting here. Petr was due to fly back today to Ireland but with all flights being grounded he may be stuck with us a little longer! We've also had the pleasure of the company of Neil, boss of our record label REL and his wonderful fiancee Mitsy, who again are both grounded in Berlin, we hope their problems are solved soon and they can get home!
For the rest of the tour we will have Barry Stewart as our tour manager and he had his first taste of bagrock last night, we'd like to welcome Barry to the Chilli family, I'm sure he'll keep us all in check!
We have a long way to go yet, still about 35 gigs to go but, if they're all as good as the first three have been, this should be a fabulous tour!
We'll be keeping you updated as the tour proceeds so watch this space!
Vielen Dank!
Chillipiper
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