Photo: Chrissy and CJ Mills, Fleadh organizers. Photographer: Tom Keenan
The Philadelphia Fleadh—a one-day extravaganza of Celtic rock bands and trad muscians—has become so well known worldwide that organizer CJ Mills gets dozens of requests from international bands asking to perform.
He always says no.
Is this man crazy?
Not really. He’s just a real hometown guy. “All of our bands are local,” says Mills who has played fiddle with several bands in the area. “They’re Philadelphia Irish. They’re all part of our scene. They’re all our friends. To bring someone new in would mean firing one of my friends. I’m not doing that.”
The Philadelphia Fleadh, now in its eleventh year, will be setting up in two huge tents in the generous parking lot of Nick’s Roast Beef at 4501 Woodhaven Road in northeast Philadelphia on Saturday May 11.
It kicks off at 8 AM with a feis—an Irish dance competition—run by Mills’ wife, Chrissy Zeo Mills, founder of the now 20-year-old Irish dance school, Celtic Flame Irish Dance and Fitness, who is both a dance teacher and personal trainer. Regular attendees are the Cummins, Timoney, and Crossroads schools, but there are usually six to eight schools represented at the Fleadh. “There’s an open invite to all the schools to participate,” says Mills. “We tell the musicians to make sure the first two songs they play are a jig or reel or something the dancers can dance to..”
In addition to 13 popular local Celtic bands and two solo artists, there’s a traditional Irish music session inside Nick’s, lead by longtime session leader, Fintan Malone, originally from Milltown Malbay in County Clare. It’s officially the “Bill Whitman Session,” named for the late bodhran player and former police officer who sat in with probably every local band in the region and dropped in at every session he could get to. He helped run the Fleadh session iuntil his untimely death a few years ago.
“Bill always made it work,” says Mills. “Everybody loved him and they came for Bill. We’re doing what we can to keep his name alive.”
Mills, who teaches media communications at Bensalem High School, has even worked Bill Whitman into his lessons. “Dale Carnegie [in his book, How to Win Friends and Influence People”) wrote about a guy known as Uncle George the Fiddle Scraper from Kinzua County. He loved and supported musicians and played with them, and everyone loved him for how good he was to others. Then I tell my students about Bill. That was him too.–everybody loved him.”
Food is provided by Nick’s food trucks—with some Irish fare on the menu—and there will be a set-up by Pops McCann Whiskey, an Irish-made whiskey with Philly roots, owned and operated by lifelong Philadelphian Jason Fogg.
“Jason has been great. He’s even there to help up set up and tear down,” says Mills. I joke with him that when he makes a million dollars he can become our biggest sponsor.”
It’s a Fogg family affair: Jason’s mother, Mary Frances, is a longtime volunteer at the Fleadh.
And the Fleadh itself is family friendly—kids who get antsy can work off their energy in a giant Moon Bounce—plus there are vendors selling all kinds of Irish goods as well as informational tables manned by organizations like Irish Language Learners and the Philadelphia Ceili Group. This year, representatives of “Where Eagles Fly,” the musical story of the Irish in America, which will debut in Philadelphia this fall, will also be there.
Tickets for the Fleadh, which runs from 11-8 PM, are $25 online and $30 at the gate. Sound like a moneymaker for Mills and his wife? It’s not. Much of what they don’t spend on the entertainment goes to the Ryan Wilson Memorial Scholarship, which honors a former media student of Mills who died in his 20s. “He was my righthand man and the first kid I ever lost,” says Mills. “I promised his parents I would keep his name alive.”
Another beneficiary of this and the Mills’ other project, Celtic Christmas, is the Bensalem Education Foundation, of which Mills is co-president.
“So, the Fleadh is not really a moneymaker,” he says, laughing. “What it is, is a labor of love in all ways. It’s something Chrissy and I did together as friends then as a couple. It’s the friendships we now have people who come year after year. It’s something people can come to and enjoy. And yes, it’s a lot of work—a little less now that we know what we’re doing—but it’s good labor.”
