So again, thank you for being here. I'm so excited to welcome Gadan. I want to give you a little bit
of information about them. With no less than three, yes, three banjos, fiddle, mandolin, guitar, Gadan
delivers a powerful strings-only sound that bridges Irish tradition and contemporary roots music. Founded
by Lorenzo Testa and
Jacopo, I hope I'm saying that right, Ventura, renowned Italian musicians from the Irish and European
folk scenes. The group also boasts Young Fiddle Virtuosa, Joan, I have, not Joan, what is it? Juan,
Juan Gatti, tenor banjo all-star Ender Scahill, and acclaimed Appalachian songwriter, singer, and claw
hammer banjoist Eric Long.
Gadan's electrifying live performances bring precision, groove, and storytelling to the stage, proving
that you don't need a drum kit to make a crowd dance. Will you please help me welcome Gadan?
You guys stuck around the whole weekend, huh? You guys like music or something? Well, oh, the cuckoo
She's a pretty bird And she warbles as she flies But she never cried a cuckoo
Till the fourth day of July.
And I can't burn in Spain
And she warbles as she flies, but she never cried a coo coo.
Be with you, Bloomington.
We play something fast after that amazing last group, huh? Keep the noise going for what you guys just
saw. The sacred steel tradition, that's a beautiful thing here in America. So that's pretty cool that
we got that. So we figured we'd play something totally different. So we're Gadan. We come from four
different countries. So it takes a lot to get here. And it's our last day on tour. So I think we're
13 shows in 14 days. And we're incredibly excited to be here with you guys.
Enda comes from, he's not there anymore, but Enda's the Irishman over there, so he comes from Ireland.
We got Johan who comes all the way from Norway. I got a bigger round of applause than Ireland today,
all right. Johan's the star today, I think, yeah. I live in California, and then Lorenzo and Jacopo
here are both from Italy, so.
We take old time music and Irish music and Celtic music and bluegrass and we kind of mash it up all
together. We're going to do that. We're going to start off with an Irish tune. This is called Frost
is All Over. We learned it from the Chieftains, if we have any Chieftains fans.
What would you do if the kettle bought over? What would you do only fill it again? And what would you
do if the cow ate the clover? What would I do? Said it again. Pratties are dug in the hair.
He gets roasted. Kitty lies close to the wall. You to be drunk and I to be sober. Kitty lie over close
to the wall.
What would I do? Only follow his gun. What would you do if he died on the ocean? What would I do?
Marry again. Pratties are dug and the herring is roasted. Kitty lies close to the wall. You'd be drunk
and I'd be sober. Kitty lies close to the wall.
What would you do if the cow had the clover? What I'd do is said it again. Fridays are dug and the herring
is roased. The kitty lies close to the wall. You'd be drunk and I'd be sober. Kitty lie over close to the wall.
So, well, Eric Longyear joined the band one year and a half ago. He didn't have a proper background
of Irish music, in fact. He was coming from bluegrass all the time and Americana music. But we were
really in love with the style on the banjo and his vocals. So we proposed to him something like, okay,
we don't mind to join the band, but you have to learn a bunch of Irish songs.
And they say, okay, I can do it. It's a fair deal, you know. And he made it. He made it really good.
But we got a deal with him. If you're gonna learn this bunch of various songs, we're gonna learn a proper
American song. And we made it okay for the music part, I think. The problem are the lyrics. I mean,
maybe you notice that you have a strong Italian accent while talking and singing. Okay?
And so that's why it's really complicated for me and for the Italian side of the band to learn all the
verses. So we just learn one word out of all the verses, all the lyrics, which is the most important
word in all the lyrics. And the complicated part for me, apart from the lyrics, is pronouncing the type
of song it is. Because it's an on-key-tonk song.
A honky tonk song. Okay, we spent the last 10 hours on the drive, on the road. He was workshopping me.
He was giving me a workshop, auto-pronounced honky tonk. And I just end up, I shoot something like,
use a really baritoneal voice and open my arms. So it's a honky tonk. That's pretty damn good, right?
Grazie. Capisci?
So next one is a hockey tongs song. And it was written by Hank Williams, guys. Hank Williams. Guys,
give a hand for Jakob Oventura.
Thank you very much. Thank you. Well, it's great to be here. I actually played Lotus Festival in 2011.
It was about two years before Johan was born. Don't let the beard put you off. So we're going to play
a tune now that was written by Johan. So Johan is from Italy, but he moved to Norway because he said
Italians are too loud.
And he's not wrong. So this is a beautiful tune that Johan wrote. It's a polka. There's quite a story
to how he came up with the name. I'll give you the abridged version, which is that he went off up into
the wilds of Northern Norway for a significant amount of time, built his own sauna, saved a baby seal,
wrestled a moose, went from the sauna to the snow to the snow, communed with the Northern lights, came
back down and said, I have arrived at a name for my polka.
and he called us Johan's Polka.
If I can't have the girl I love, I don't want none at all. Shady Grove, my little love. Shady Grove,
I say. Shady Grove, my little love, I'm bound to go away. Shady Grove, my little love. Shady Grove,
I say. Shady Grove, my little love, I'm bound to go away.
could pick like that, right? They say that half of your entire career as a banjo player is spent tuning
the banjo. And the other half is spent playing out of tune. We try our best to not do that for you guys.
It's really good to be here with you guys. We're going to do an original song of ours. This is on a record.
that came out last year, it's called May the Devil Tune Your Banjos. Yeah, I guess we have three banjos,
you know? We usually check with the local authorities, make sure it's okay to bring three banjos into
the state at the same time, but in the same vehicle, but we got okayed last night in Jasper, so we know
it's okay, so. Yeah. Anywho, we've got a little special we're gonna run. Today's the last day of our
tour, like I said earlier. Anybody that buys a t-shirt, we're gonna give you a free CD. So, if you already
bought a t-shirt, come see us after the show.
So that's 25 bucks for free. Because we don't want to ship them back to Italy, is the main story there.
So we're going to do a song off that record. This is called We Can Shine. Well, I've got enough to fill
the day. I've got enough to fill the night.
When we talk you keep me up all night When the days feel like a song When the days are dark and long
I'll be there by your side I'll be your love, I'll be your love
We can shine When I'm with you I can shine We're all alive Together we can shine Out on the water, far
and wide I'll wait on every side Walk with me
Without a woman like you, there's a time
Sure.
there.
Thank you very much. That's an original song written by Lorenzo Testa. It's called Rose. This is always
a favorite part of the set for me where we get to sit back on the side and we get to watch Ireland duke
it out with Norway. You guys want to see that? All right, here we go. You have a really weird kind of
dancing here in Indiana that I've noticed. It involves a lot of sitting down.
We're going to run a dance competition, because this one gets pretty lively, and actually it's really
lively from here on out. So the best dancer and the worst dancer, often the same person, is going to
win a t-shirt. So it's a lovely day for a Gadan. This is your big opportunity. You're still sitting
down. I don't know what's going on, guys. I'm going to say two t-shirts. Bada bim, bada boom.
This is your last chance to dance with an Irish, Italian, American, Norwegian band.
in the pink t-shirt. Give it up for Wendy! Come on, pick somebody, Jacopo. I don't know, I was really
concentrating on the stomp, so I haven't seen. This girl here in the pink, she was one of our earliest dancers.
If you didn't win, you know what to do on the way out, right? So we're going to do a song on three banjos
that was written in Scotland to be played on the bagpipes.
Thank you.
it's all about needing a little bit more love and a little bit more kindness in the world. Can you get
behind that? We all need more kindness in this world. We all need more kindness in this world. You may
look how you look, but there's nowhere else to go. We all need more kindness in this world. We all need
in this world we all need more banjos in this world
We all need more kindness in this
It was such a good tour. Will you guys do a selfie with us? Thank you so much, Lotus Fest. You guys
are awesome.