The kick-off celebration for the Galway Arts Festival just kept getting bigger and bigger. By the end of the evening, about 10,000 people squeezed into the Black Box theatre car park but Rose Fitzgerald, who organised the opening night party, reckoned about half of them had planned to watch the Kodo drummers' free concert and the other half just arrived to see what on earth the noise was.
Earlier in the evening, Brian Farrell, the new head of the Arts Council, pronounced the vibrant festival officially open and was treated to applause from a collection of guests that included the former Minister for the Arts, Michael D. Higgins; Arts Council members Jane O'Leary of Music for Galway and Brendan Flynn, director of Clifden Arts Week; DJ Donal Dineen; Joe O'Byrne, director of The Dead School which opens next week; Rod Goodall of Footsbarn theatre company, which is putting on two plays and contributing their marvellous tent to the Galway Arts Festival atmosphere. Throughout the week interesting people kept turning up at Festival openings.
Playwright Martin McDonagh revealed himself to be a Kristin Hersh fan when he made a bee-line for her concert on Tuesday night while Jon Kenny of D'Unbelievables was at the opening night of Footsbarn's Don Juan. Predictably, the fabulous Circus of Horrors show attracted a clutch of ghoulish fans including the new Mayor of Galway, Angela Lupton, actor Malcolm Douglas and former Film Board director Lelia Doolan.