Let's Celebrate
From the month of March to the month of October, with a few scattered dates in the winter months, every parish and town celebrates their patron saint. The first notice of the celebration as you drive through the area is lights hanging over the road, generally spelling out "Boas Festas" (Happy Festival). If the celebration is going on in a more secluded area, there will be lights shaped like an arrow, showing visitors to a lane that will wind among fields and farmhouses to the open area where people gather in the evening. Because a festival is not a festival without music.
Once upon a time, the feast day was celebrated by going to a special Mass, and then dancing to the bagpipes in the afternoon. By the time sunset came darkening the world, the last song would be played, the last dance would be danced, and people would retire to their homes, to rest before the work the next day would bring. Things have changed. Mass is still celebrated, but not all attend. There may be bagpipes or charangas (street bands) in the afternoon after people eat their enormous feast day lunch, but the real music comes after ten or ten thirty at night and stretches to three or four in the morning.
Most villages and small towns have an open area or a square where they traditionally celebrate their festival. In some villages the traditional area has gotten small, and so they have gone into the communal woods, where an area has been conditioned to hold usually more people than live in the village. One of the reasons for that is that the music is now provided by portable musical shows that travel throughout Galicia in tractor trailers. Those trailers are parked in the square where the festival will be held. Usually there are two each night of a celebration, one facing the other across the open area. One will play for two hours, then the other. The trailers open up to form stages with all the accoutrements you might find on a television stage. The bands that play have progressed from simple instrumentalists with one vocalist, to instrumentalists with various vocalists and light and dance choreography. You could almost be watching a television special, live.
I don't usually like to go in the evenings to one of the numerous village festivals around us. Mostly because we don't dance and to simply stand there listening to the music and watching the gyrations of lightly clad women in the cool spring or summer night is even less enticing than watching it on television. Sometimes we meet people we know, and stand there talking for a while, but even that is difficult to do with the volume of the music. Which is another problem. Sometimes on summer evenings, if the stage is oriented in the right direction, I can clearly hear in our home the songs the vocalist is singing. Even though they may be some kilometers away from here.
The choice of music is another thorn. I prefer a wide potpourri of music, from salsa to pop to rancheras to waltzes. Most groups specialize in just one kind. And usually that kind is salsa and similar types of Latin music. Exclusively. The reason for that is that most familiar pop songs are by groups singing in English. The vocalists in the itinerant musical groups never seem to get the grasp of English pronunciation, even when they simply copy the sounds and not the words. So, at a festival, I might hear the opening accords of a pop song I like. And wince as soon as the vocalist starts singing the lyrics. My mind is cringing at every word, and I do not enjoy the experience.
Some groups do a good job, though. On those occasions it's a joy to be out at night, music thundering up to the stars scattered along the black canopy, nature wondering at the sounds our species creates. Those nights I'm reminded of the festivals I attended as a child when on vacation here. And of how strange and different it all was from what I was used to. Even the Italian festivals in the North End weren't as boisterous and extravagant.
Once upon a time, the feast day was celebrated by going to a special Mass, and then dancing to the bagpipes in the afternoon. By the time sunset came darkening the world, the last song would be played, the last dance would be danced, and people would retire to their homes, to rest before the work the next day would bring. Things have changed. Mass is still celebrated, but not all attend. There may be bagpipes or charangas (street bands) in the afternoon after people eat their enormous feast day lunch, but the real music comes after ten or ten thirty at night and stretches to three or four in the morning.
Most villages and small towns have an open area or a square where they traditionally celebrate their festival. In some villages the traditional area has gotten small, and so they have gone into the communal woods, where an area has been conditioned to hold usually more people than live in the village. One of the reasons for that is that the music is now provided by portable musical shows that travel throughout Galicia in tractor trailers. Those trailers are parked in the square where the festival will be held. Usually there are two each night of a celebration, one facing the other across the open area. One will play for two hours, then the other. The trailers open up to form stages with all the accoutrements you might find on a television stage. The bands that play have progressed from simple instrumentalists with one vocalist, to instrumentalists with various vocalists and light and dance choreography. You could almost be watching a television special, live.
I don't usually like to go in the evenings to one of the numerous village festivals around us. Mostly because we don't dance and to simply stand there listening to the music and watching the gyrations of lightly clad women in the cool spring or summer night is even less enticing than watching it on television. Sometimes we meet people we know, and stand there talking for a while, but even that is difficult to do with the volume of the music. Which is another problem. Sometimes on summer evenings, if the stage is oriented in the right direction, I can clearly hear in our home the songs the vocalist is singing. Even though they may be some kilometers away from here.
The choice of music is another thorn. I prefer a wide potpourri of music, from salsa to pop to rancheras to waltzes. Most groups specialize in just one kind. And usually that kind is salsa and similar types of Latin music. Exclusively. The reason for that is that most familiar pop songs are by groups singing in English. The vocalists in the itinerant musical groups never seem to get the grasp of English pronunciation, even when they simply copy the sounds and not the words. So, at a festival, I might hear the opening accords of a pop song I like. And wince as soon as the vocalist starts singing the lyrics. My mind is cringing at every word, and I do not enjoy the experience.
Some groups do a good job, though. On those occasions it's a joy to be out at night, music thundering up to the stars scattered along the black canopy, nature wondering at the sounds our species creates. Those nights I'm reminded of the festivals I attended as a child when on vacation here. And of how strange and different it all was from what I was used to. Even the Italian festivals in the North End weren't as boisterous and extravagant.
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