Rapalje @ Isala

[janestarz]

Last night NoKey's mother, my mother-in-law, came to pick us up. We drove to Capelle, to the restaurant Irodion. It's a Greek restaurant that is literally around the corner from Keffie's place, and as it turns out, it's got the most tasty Greek cuisine I've yet tasted, except possibly actual Greek food in Greece itself. I chose the keftedes (minced meat in tomato sauce) with the special platter from the chef, while NoKey went for solomos (salmon) and his mother had a vegetarian platter and feta from the oven. The vegetarian platter looked delicious, all sorts of small bites: stuffed pepper, vegetarian moussaka, rice with tomato sauce...

The chef's special was great: pork, beef and lamb, all very tender and very well-prepared. I dislike lamb normally, because it tastes like sheep smell, but I really didn't taste any of that. I could only tell by the texture and shape of the meat that it was lamb, and not beef. It was all really very tasteful!

Irodion - Amsteldiep, Capelle a/d IJssel
Atmosphere: 8
Food: 8,5
Service: 8

After dinner, we quickly made our way to the Isala theatre, also in Capelle. There we met up with Leona, Keffie and his father, and H'eldaran and his girlfriend. We went inside, dropped off our coats and ran into Jinni and Askie, quickly followed by BigBoss and his wife and alhandra_s. This did not surprise me in the slightest, as whenever there's a social thing which involves Rapalje or Omnia, these are the people living close to us and willing to go out to see the activities. It was great seeing everyone, especially with Maerquin coming up in a week and a half and every one of them (except from our party) going to go there.

The show itself was great, and Rapalje played faster and faster than I've ever heard before! I always love Rapalje, these boys in their kilts have a charisma way up there, and they know how to make a crowd dance. Now the Isala might possibly be the most rusted-to-your-seat theatre there is, they finally got the crowds up from their seats and jumping to "Drunken Sailor" in the end.

Sadly, the sound quality was poor at some points, but the band more than made up for it. I just know that David can play the flute better than we could hear - the air passing over the microphone made up at least half of what the amplifier blasted at us, except at the end of his breath...There was also a little incident where Macéal's sound stopped altogether, but William and Dieb carried the show all by themselves, while Macéal kept on playing.

Sadly, MIL has athritis and was very tired at the end of the night, so we went home while Rapalje played on in the lobby and people finally got to dancing in earnest. Ah well, I'll jump see them at the Midwinterfair!

Should anyone be interested in their music, Rapalje has their own channel on YouTube! (also great to ignore work by)