Flour Power

The Green Dragon resting at the Galway docks.

My video reporting of the Volvo Ocean Race in Galway continues with a couple of videos of Lucia Evans‘ performance at The Topaz Main Stage in the Galway docks yesterday (May 26). A very windy night, as you can see and hear in the videos, but that didn’t keep everyone at home, and the turnout was quite decent. Nothing like the previous day, though.

The third day of the festival celebrating the Galway stopover of the Volvo Ocean Race had Oleku Band playing in The Topaz Main Stage. I headed down there to check it out, although I wasn’t expecting much, because it was a quite cold (and almost raining) Monday.

But what I saw left me positively surprised. There were actually quite a lot of people outside, and the majority was actually dancing to the African rythms presented by the Nigerian band. Near the end of the performance a few of the audience members started dancing Capoeira which rapidly gathered a big crowd around them. Fun stuff.

Here are two movies I recorded of the Oleku Band performance (no video of the Capoeira session because there wasn’t enough light):

Last night was the official opening of Galway’s stopover festival for the Volvo Ocean Race. I headed down to the docks to watch it, and also recorded as much of it as I could. The videos are a bit shaky, but you have to believe me when I say it’s hard to hold a camera over your head for more than 20 minutes.

So here are the bits that I could get (beware of the bits in Irish):

More videos will be added as soon as Youtube finishes processing.

The 2008-2009 edition of the Volvo Ocean Race is having a two-week stopover in Galway for the first time ever. And that probably means that the otherwise quiet city will transform itself for a few days.

I have to admit that I don’t really care about the race itself. Although it seems like a really demanding and impressive sport and all that, sailing is far from being something that I like to watch as a sport. So, what I’m looking forward in this Galway stopover are all the activities happening in the city during the 2 weeks.

According to the different websites writing about it, Galway should expect to receive between 150.000 and 250.000 people during the 15 days. Well, considering that the total population of Galway is about 70.000 people, I can only begin to imagine the chaos. And let’s add to that the fact that I can see the whole “Race Village” from my bedroom window (including the stage where some concerts will be played). See where this is going? It’s a good thing I like some chaos every once in a while.

After I wondered several times what were they waiting for to start the preparations, they are now well underway. The 8 big oil tanks have been removed a couple of weeks ago to make room for the “Race Village”, where several pavillions, a dome and lots of Volvo flags can now be seen. Also, the whole marina has been surrounded by a fence (we don’t want inebriated tourists falling into the water, do we?), a stage is being built and some houses in the Docks area are being painted. And there’s something new every day when I come back from work.

To keep everyone entertained for the duration of it all, a multitude of events will be taking place all around the city, including exhibitions, concerts and races in Galway Bay. I still haven’t had time to take a real look at the schedule, but I’ll try to post about it soon. In the meanwhile, keep an eye on the following resources to keep informed:

Volvo Ocean Race official page
Galway stopover page
Facebook group
Twitter