Live Updates From Ireland

Hello everyone! We are at our final day of our journey here in London, and we're heading back home tomorrow. Apologies for the late updates, internet access is not easily available in our hotel and our schedule has been pretty packed.

But no worries! a HUGE update will be made about the trip when we get back to Singapore, look out for tour video as well!

Thank you so much for supporting Samba Masala! We'll see you soon back in Singapore!

After a whole lot of fun, we headed down to the Drogheda Town Center to do some busking! With everyone in the mood for Samba, we even had a loyal following of supporters who hiked with us from the D hotel to our destination! If you look closely at this picture, you will even see that another Samba group, the Mad Hatters, were actually grooving together with us in the song that unites all Samba Bands: SAMBA!

We performed a total of 7 songs and of course, the weather threatened to interrupt us but fortunately, the rain went away after a while.

Girls on the Surdos!

Our Surdo boys with their drumming moves during our hit song, Sharan Song.

Bell Section posing for a picture

The entire Samba Masala during Sharan Song.

The crowd certainly had a great time, and so did we! It was certainly very different from our busking sessions in Singapore,.

As we were hiking back to our hotel, we bumped into another Samba Group performing outside the Scotch Hall, Arco Iris from Cambridge, UK!

Tamborim players from Arco Iris

Even senior citizens get into the groove!

Repinique of Arco Iris signaling to her band.

This is Arco Iris' 6th time back in the Drogheda Samba Festival.

After the busking session, we headed off in different directions as there was some free time to explore the area.

African dancing demonstration at the Lawrence Town Center

African dance drum beats!

Capoiera demonstrations and workshop. Some of our members had a go at this as well!

Yee Huat having a go at Capoeira.

Yee Chuan taking his shot at Capoeira as well.

Some of us also went to check out Unidos at the Drogheda Town Center where they were doing some busking.

Repinique player on stilts!

The entire Unidos Band

Unidos' Hand drum section

Tamborim Section!
After dinner, we headed down to McPhails Beer Garden to check out Onca and Orca Iris!

Onca in Action! That pretty much sums up the 2nd day of the Festival, tomorrow's gonna be the closing Carnival Parade and showcases.... not to mention one last gig at the McPhails Beer Garden! See you guys soon!

Mayor Of Drogheda giving the opening address for the Drogheda Samba Festival at the D Hotel.

Samba Masala was the opening item for the festival and at 30 plus strong, we are actually the biggest Samba band to ever perform in the history of the festival! Here we have a picture with the Mayor before hitting the drums!

Our instructor, Budi, d.rumming up the beats.

Our Dhol section showcasing our unique blend of asian instruments to the Irish. It certainly got the crowd up and jumping!

Yanbin and our instructor, Hardy, enjoying every single moment of the performance.

Clara and Berdine shaking away to our song, Coco.

We performed a total of 4 songs for the opening ceremony.

The great backdrop that Samba Masala was playing in, but it was certainly cold with the cool Irish weather!

The Dhols starting off our hit song, SHANGO!

Group pictures with the organisers and who's who of the Drogheda Samba Festival.

Members of our band with some new found friends :)

If you thought that the performance for the opening ceremony was the only piece of Samba action that we got, you're wrong! After starting things off at the D Hotel, we headed over to the McPhails Beer Garden where we showcased our songs off to not just the Irish, but other Samba bands as well!

Our long hike to the beer garden, check out the Surdo boys lugging their huge baggage.

More of the Surdo boys.

The constant, everyday hikes into the city center for gigs and workshops.

Thumbs up before heading into the Beer Garden.

Unidos from the Isle of Wight drumming up some Samba beats! They were the performance before us and we certainly had a great time enjoying their unique blend of Samba Music!


Hand drums!

Young girl enjoying the music

Samba is present in all ages of men and women!

Leading Unidos in their Samba journey...

Check out these two very talented kids, they were drumming away on the Surdos after the gig!

Samba Masala enjoying the music

The two kids blew the crowd away with their surdo skills!

Having fun with the kids.

Samba Masala girls take the stage by showing off their Surdo skills and dance moves!

Gerald leading the group

More excitment and fun!

Our poses during our hit song, SHARAN Song.

Group picture after the gig.

With more of our friends from Unidos! We will be having a workshop with them to exchange some of our unique blends of Samba so you'll be seeing more of them soon!

The party starts right after! The locals and other sambistas from places were very enthusiastic to talk to us. Accompanied with great local Irish Guinness, the night was only getting started.

That sums up the opening day of the Festival, check back soon as we keep you updated with the latest happenings of the Samba Swing!

Updated: 27th June, 2354hrs.

The Samba Festival starts tomorrow! Morning's practice was interrupted twice by rain! It was certainly a sight to see 30+ students running in and out of the Hotel with all their instruments(imagine the Surdo boys!)

But nevertheless we did manage to finish a run through of all our songs. As a reward, we went for a sightseeing tour to Slane Castle and the Hill of Slane! We certainly had a blast taking pictures at the Hill Of Slane where many of us were scaling the 1000+ year old castle remains!
More pictures for the whole story!

Samba Masala buying lunch from a deli shop.























More sleep for us now! Check back for more updates tomorrow!

Updated: Ireland 12.49am June 27

What an eventful first day it was! After a whole day of traveling, we have finally arrive at our accomodation, the D Hotel. We must say, The D is certainly extravagant! Woo hoo!

But our journey here was certainly full of ups and downs. From a faulty air-conditioning unit on board our SQ Flight to London Heathrow(air was stale for 13 hours?!) to missing our connecting British Midland Flight to Dublin! FORTUNATEly, we were able to catch another flight at a later timing!












More pictures and VIDEOS(if possible!) coming up soon! We're off for breakfast now followed by a practice of our songs! More sightseeing in the afternoon and a workshop with Neil Gregory in the evening. Keep checking back for more details! See you in a while!

Updated: Ireland 9.44am, 25th June.

We had our last busking session before the Ireland trip and what a blast it was! The crowd certainly had fun dancing along to our new beats, while we enjoyed drumming and up and trying out some new dance moves as well! Furthermore, it was the busking debut of our new Indian Dhol section!





We received many great words of encouragement and some saturday afternoon shoppers also had a first-hand experience of trying out some of our Samba instruments. With so much fun and entertainment going on, you can be sure we're gonna show the folks over in Ireland what Singapore Samba has to offer!

Hello everyone! This is our first blog post on the Samba Masala: The Samba Swing blog! Stay tune as we bring you live updates from our pre-departure days...to the actual event thats happening halfway round the globe! Cheers!