My wife has been singing at retirement homes for the past couple of years. 3 homes asked her if she would do an Irish theme for St Pat's day this year. So, we dusted off a few tunes and gave one performance on Tuesday evening, one performance tonight, and the last one is scheduled for next Thursday.
Between Tuesday & tonight, we had all the Luck of the Irish: On Tuesday we got stuck in a rush hour traffic jam, and then got lost by trying to follow the map, turning a 25 minute drive into nearly an hour and 15 minutes. We were 10 minutes late. They didn't care that we were late, they were just glad that we came. Tonight we could not stay in tune if our life depended on it. We had their full attention, all decked out on an elevated stage. I was wishing we were in a corner because our intonation was so off. I am not sure if the audience was tone deaf or being polite to us, but they loved us again. A 92 year old man joined Rose for a quick step dance lesson and wowed everyone. (It turns out he is a senior-olympics champion.)
So, despite the fact that yours truly did almost nothing right, St Pat smiled on us, maybe because we were doing something to make others happy, and definitely because Mrs. ceciltguitar is a very talented singer and a natural entertainer (ok, she was a pro for 6 years, 6 hours a night, 7 days a week). I was trying to shake (or hide) shame and embarassment the whole time because of being late, being out of tune, missing notes right & left, but the audience was having a great time, not even noticing or caring about my errors. St Pat was probably rolling in laughter. At least I can shake my head and laugh along with him.
I get to go with her to these gigs to carry the equipment and add some incidental instrumental melodies to her rhythm guitar renditions of reels, jigs & slip jigs, which are strategically mixed with a collection of rarely-heard Irish songs, like "Danny Boy", "Wild Irish Rose" and "When Irish Eyes are Smiling". Of course, as recent threads here have proven, (hierarchies, etc) melodies are not really needed when playing traditional Irish dance music, especially when performed on quintessential top-tier traditional Irish instruments like the guitar. Unfortunately, we did not have any bodhrans, but we did distribute the premier Irish rhythm instruments to our audience to accompany us: tambourines, morrocas, bells, and a genuine shaky egg. And they, of course, loved it. I assured the audience that Rose was playing a thoroughly Irish Harp, and that I was sporting a genuine Irish fiddle, and that anyone who thought that our instruments looked or sounded like guitars had made either one too many or one too few trips to the bar.
We don't make any pretenses to be genuine bonafide certified traditional Irish musicians, but we love the music and the opportunity to share it, and our audiences had a great time in spite of our shortcomings, and that is probably all that matters.
We had one of our fiddlers attacked by a supersized Irish aunty after he sniggered loudly at a not-unkind joke I'd made during her unasked for rendition of Galway Bay. St Patrick's Day brings all sorts out of the woodwork.
Colour me curmudgeoned - we could barely hear each other last night. Didn't advertise, and it ain't an Irish Pub, but the place was overflowing with punters who expected their idea of Irish music ALL the time - from Chieftains to Corr's to U2 to Foster & Allen, whereas the musicians had specifically asked management not to pay us this year, so's we could just get our fix without being beholden to anyone. Ah well... there was craic to be had anyway.
Actually it was two of our fiddlers, not one. And she had fallen over me and kicked me several times before I beggered of to the back of the audience, where I had a perfect view of her drunkedly falling down the stairs and landing on top of a very skinny girl.
We were to meet for a session in one of friendly pubs around here. Of course, when we got there, the place was tight packed with people. When we started playing we could barely hear each other. This sent our fiddler raging. Well, the beginning was pretty rough.
At one moment, I was left in the muso's corner (which is wisely separated by a wooden rail) with a pair of very amiable fiddle newbies and a whistle player. As no-one could ever hear us, we set our for a slow session. Their repertoire was limited yet, but we did not have any reservations to play the tunes 7 times in a row.
When the pub cleared a bit (a few hours later), a guy with hurdy-gurdy set out for a bunch of Asturian and Breton tunes, and we followed the suit, forgetting about St. Paddy's obvious traditional connotations (well, it was past midnight anyhoo). Then the dancers followed our suit. The last half hour of the session was truly remarkable. All ended about 2 a.m. only because it was the middle of the week.
Quite a few years ago the group I was playing with at the time had a cracker of a gig in the 5 star Culloden Hotel just outside Belfast. PLaying, if you can believe it, for the Knights of Columbanus.
So we get together around 5 at the mates house for a practice run through. We get the gear ready to head out around 6.30 to be completely gibsmacked by about a foot and a half of snow!!
Anyway we make trackes for the gig. Normally the trip should have taken about 20 minutes. An hour and a half later we arrive at the hotel with this grand wizard or some such silly title absolutely puce with rage. You're an hour f**king late you bas***ds, where the f*** have you been, I'll make f***ing sure you never play a gig in Belfast again ********** etc. I asked politely if he had looked outside recently and he said 'What the f*** would I want to do that for.
I dragged him by the elbow to the front door and said 'Because there's two f***ing foot of snow on the ground you f***ing dick.
He was profuse with the apologies and the gig actually went off reasonably well after the howling mob wwere calmed and the delay explained.
They even threw and extra £100 into the deal at the end of the gig by way of a more substantial aplogy for the wizards earlier ravings.
As the road rose to meet me, I tripped, fell and busted 2 fingers in my left hand. I'm off the fiddle for 2 weeks. Getting back to it should be fun. I figure I'll be a born again fiddler, and that should take care of 1 of 7 reincarnations to play decently. Luck indeed!
Thanks, Breandan! I'm going to try my hand (the right one) at writing an open string tune (unless anyone knows one). I'll call it "Deb's damaged digits".
I messed around with a couple of the tracks from a Cd I'm working on looking for the magic compression / reverb combination to make them sound like I recorded them analog in a quaint log cabin in the woods instead of digitally in my cramped, acoustically dead office beside a major traffic artery.
Then I got a couple phone calls of the "Come see my gig!" variety and an invitation out for a pint from a room-mate. I turned them all down and noodled on my guitar for a couple hours, then did laundry. It was the nicest evening I've had for weeks.
I bought a Creemore and a St. Peter's ale at the beer store, went home, drank one of the beers, played Pinbal Wizard on the guitar for 20 minutes straight, and went to bed at 8:00pm... and slept till 6:00am. Nothing Irish, nothing St. Patrick's, nothing wrong with that... probably will never play my fiddle again.
Had a marvelous session - great tunes - great crowd and Nietzsche's Pub in downtown Buffalo.
Imagine commanding utter silence on St. Paddy's Day to hear a lovely song (with Black Velvet Band and Wild Rover nowhere to be found!), imagine no green beer, no broken instruments, applause after every set (and being able to hear each other while playing said sets, despite the place being packed).
I think I posted this on the wrong thread last night when I got home. Here it is again.
The agent that roped us into our gig told use to come wearing an "Irish costume." When he showed up he asked us where our costumes were, and I told him Irish people dress just like everyone else. He wasn't satisfied, but it was too late by then. (That was my plan of course)
The gig was surreal; it was in this massive ballroom in the SF Marriott and they had a billboard size screen behind us with a video of “Over Ireland” being projected from the rear. There were two or three TV cameras out front filming us from different angles and they were fading our images in and out of the video behind us. I looked around at one point and there was a 24-foot high bodhran being played right behind my head. (I immediately thought of Bodhran Bliss's thread) The sound system they were running for us was awesome, and with the light show behind us it was like no other gig we've ever done.
The crowd was made up of people that owned gyms from all around the world and they seemed much more interested in talking with each other about what would happen next in their hotel rooms after the party – and they had little real interest in what we were doing. They seemed bewildered and disappointed that Paddy’s Day happened to fall on the same date as their conference. But such is life on Paddy's Day in America.
I left work half an hour early, went home, worked on a writing project, had a lovely long fiddle play and a dinner of homemade Mexican food, and went to bed.
Blissful evening. ;)
My husband and I both have flu. It's the first St Patricks for a few years when I haven't even got my fiddle out of the case!!
I've had a short play today but I need to get gig fit by Friday!
The Luck of the Irish: St Pat's 2005
The Luck of the Irish: St Pat's 2005
Anyone else want to tell their story?
Unfortunately, we did not have any bodhrans, but we did distribute the premier Irish rhythm instruments to our audience to accompany us: tambourines, morrocas, bells, and a genuine shaky egg. And they, of course, loved it. I assured the audience that Rose was playing a thoroughly Irish Harp, and that I was sporting a genuine Irish fiddle, and that anyone who thought that our instruments looked or sounded like guitars had made either one too many or one too few trips to the bar.
Here's ours:
My wife has been singing at retirement homes for the past couple of years. 3 homes asked her if she would do an Irish theme for St Pat's day this year. So, we dusted off a few tunes and gave one performance on Tuesday evening, one performance tonight, and the last one is scheduled for next Thursday.
Between Tuesday & tonight, we had all the Luck of the Irish: On Tuesday we got stuck in a rush hour traffic jam, and then got lost by trying to follow the map, turning a 25 minute drive into nearly an hour and 15 minutes. We were 10 minutes late. They didn't care that we were late, they were just glad that we came. Tonight we could not stay in tune if our life depended on it. We had their full attention, all decked out on an elevated stage. I was wishing we were in a corner because our intonation was so off. I am not sure if the audience was tone deaf or being polite to us, but they loved us again. A 92 year old man joined Rose for a quick step dance lesson and wowed everyone. (It turns out he is a senior-olympics champion.)
So, despite the fact that yours truly did almost nothing right, St Pat smiled on us, maybe because we were doing something to make others happy, and definitely because Mrs. ceciltguitar is a very talented singer and a natural entertainer (ok, she was a pro for 6 years, 6 hours a night, 7 days a week). I was trying to shake (or hide) shame and embarassment the whole time because of being late, being out of tune, missing notes right & left, but the audience was having a great time, not even noticing or caring about my errors. St Pat was probably rolling in laughter. At least I can shake my head and laugh along with him.
I get to go with her to these gigs to carry the equipment and add some incidental instrumental melodies to her rhythm guitar renditions of reels, jigs & slip jigs, which are strategically mixed with a collection of rarely-heard Irish songs, like "Danny Boy", "Wild Irish Rose" and "When Irish Eyes are Smiling". Of course, as recent threads here have proven, (hierarchies, etc) melodies are not really needed when playing traditional Irish dance music, especially when performed on quintessential top-tier traditional Irish instruments like the guitar.
We don't make any pretenses to be genuine bonafide certified traditional Irish musicians, but we love the music and the opportunity to share it, and our audiences had a great time in spite of our shortcomings, and that is probably all that matters.
# Posted on March 18th 2005 by ceciltguitar
Re: The Luck of the Irish: St Pat's 2005
I'm just glad it's over.
# Posted on March 18th 2005 by Phantom Button
Re: The Luck of the Irish: St Pat's 2005
We had one of our fiddlers attacked by a supersized Irish aunty after he sniggered loudly at a not-unkind joke I'd made during her unasked for rendition of Galway Bay. St Patrick's Day brings all sorts out of the woodwork.
Colour me curmudgeoned - we could barely hear each other last night. Didn't advertise, and it ain't an Irish Pub, but the place was overflowing with punters who expected their idea of Irish music ALL the time - from Chieftains to Corr's to U2 to Foster & Allen, whereas the musicians had specifically asked management not to pay us this year, so's we could just get our fix without being beholden to anyone. Ah well... there was craic to be had anyway.
# Posted on March 18th 2005 by Q
Re: The Luck of the Irish: St Pat's 2005
Actually it was two of our fiddlers, not one. And she had fallen over me and kicked me several times before I beggered of to the back of the audience, where I had a perfect view of her drunkedly falling down the stairs and landing on top of a very skinny girl.
# Posted on March 18th 2005 by Shrog
Re: The Luck of the Irish: St Pat's 2005
I don't even want to talk about it.
Amplification is the root of all evil.
# Posted on March 18th 2005 by Ottery
Re: The Luck of the Irish: St Pat's 2005
Wondered where you disappeared to, Robert... I thought it was just Timon she clobbered, who else did she lay into?
# Posted on March 18th 2005 by Q
Re: The Luck of the Irish: St Pat's 2005
She got both Timon and Cathal.
# Posted on March 18th 2005 by Shrog
Re: The Luck of the Irish: St Pat's 2005
This was my virgin St. Paddy's playing.
We were to meet for a session in one of friendly pubs around here. Of course, when we got there, the place was tight packed with people. When we started playing we could barely hear each other. This sent our fiddler raging. Well, the beginning was pretty rough.
At one moment, I was left in the muso's corner (which is wisely separated by a wooden rail) with a pair of very amiable fiddle newbies and a whistle player. As no-one could ever hear us, we set our for a slow session. Their repertoire was limited yet, but we did not have any reservations to play the tunes 7 times in a row.
When the pub cleared a bit (a few hours later), a guy with hurdy-gurdy set out for a bunch of Asturian and Breton tunes, and we followed the suit, forgetting about St. Paddy's obvious traditional connotations (well, it was past midnight anyhoo). Then the dancers followed our suit. The last half hour of the session was truly remarkable. All ended about 2 a.m. only because it was the middle of the week.
# Posted on March 18th 2005 by Janek
Re: The Luck of the Irish: St Pat's 2005
He doesn't always smile or turn the stones.
Quite a few years ago the group I was playing with at the time had a cracker of a gig in the 5 star Culloden Hotel just outside Belfast. PLaying, if you can believe it, for the Knights of Columbanus.
So we get together around 5 at the mates house for a practice run through. We get the gear ready to head out around 6.30 to be completely gibsmacked by about a foot and a half of snow!!
Anyway we make trackes for the gig. Normally the trip should have taken about 20 minutes. An hour and a half later we arrive at the hotel with this grand wizard or some such silly title absolutely puce with rage. You're an hour f**king late you bas***ds, where the f*** have you been, I'll make f***ing sure you never play a gig in Belfast again ********** etc. I asked politely if he had looked outside recently and he said 'What the f*** would I want to do that for.
I dragged him by the elbow to the front door and said 'Because there's two f***ing foot of snow on the ground you f***ing dick.
He was profuse with the apologies and the gig actually went off reasonably well after the howling mob wwere calmed and the delay explained.
They even threw and extra £100 into the deal at the end of the gig by way of a more substantial aplogy for the wizards earlier ravings.
So maybe all's well that ends well.
# Posted on March 18th 2005 by breandan
Re: The Luck of the Irish: St Pat's 2005
As the road rose to meet me, I tripped, fell and busted 2 fingers in my left hand. I'm off the fiddle for 2 weeks. Getting back to it should be fun. I figure I'll be a born again fiddler, and that should take care of 1 of 7 reincarnations to play decently. Luck indeed!
# Posted on March 18th 2005 by Agnes Nutter
Re: The Luck of the Irish: St Pat's 2005
God - really sorry to hear that. Hope you get well soon ((
))
# Posted on March 18th 2005 by breandan
Re: The Luck of the Irish: St Pat's 2005
Thanks, Breandan! I'm going to try my hand (the right one) at writing an open string tune (unless anyone knows one). I'll call it "Deb's damaged digits".
# Posted on March 18th 2005 by Agnes Nutter
Re: The Luck of the Irish: St Pat's 2005
I'm with Ottery on this one.
I'd just like to draw a discreet veil over last night's proceedings.
# Posted on March 18th 2005 by JerryH
Re: The Luck of the Irish: St Pat's 2005
I messed around with a couple of the tracks from a Cd I'm working on looking for the magic compression / reverb combination to make them sound like I recorded them analog in a quaint log cabin in the woods instead of digitally in my cramped, acoustically dead office beside a major traffic artery.
Then I got a couple phone calls of the "Come see my gig!" variety and an invitation out for a pint from a room-mate. I turned them all down and noodled on my guitar for a couple hours, then did laundry. It was the nicest evening I've had for weeks.
# Posted on March 18th 2005 by Kerri Brown
Re: The Luck of the Irish: St Pat's 2005
I bought a Creemore and a St. Peter's ale at the beer store, went home, drank one of the beers, played Pinbal Wizard on the guitar for 20 minutes straight, and went to bed at 8:00pm... and slept till 6:00am. Nothing Irish, nothing St. Patrick's, nothing wrong with that... probably will never play my fiddle again.
# Posted on March 18th 2005 by c_ya
Great craic last night in Buffalo
Had a marvelous session - great tunes - great crowd and Nietzsche's Pub in downtown Buffalo.
Imagine commanding utter silence on St. Paddy's Day to hear a lovely song (with Black Velvet Band and Wild Rover nowhere to be found!), imagine no green beer, no broken instruments, applause after every set (and being able to hear each other while playing said sets, despite the place being packed).
And there were cupcakes too.
# Posted on March 18th 2005 by _Steph_
Re: The Luck of the Irish: St Pat's 2005
I think I posted this on the wrong thread last night when I got home. Here it is again.
The agent that roped us into our gig told use to come wearing an "Irish costume." When he showed up he asked us where our costumes were, and I told him Irish people dress just like everyone else. He wasn't satisfied, but it was too late by then. (That was my plan of course)
The gig was surreal; it was in this massive ballroom in the SF Marriott and they had a billboard size screen behind us with a video of “Over Ireland” being projected from the rear. There were two or three TV cameras out front filming us from different angles and they were fading our images in and out of the video behind us. I looked around at one point and there was a 24-foot high bodhran being played right behind my head. (I immediately thought of Bodhran Bliss's thread) The sound system they were running for us was awesome, and with the light show behind us it was like no other gig we've ever done.
The crowd was made up of people that owned gyms from all around the world and they seemed much more interested in talking with each other about what would happen next in their hotel rooms after the party – and they had little real interest in what we were doing. They seemed bewildered and disappointed that Paddy’s Day happened to fall on the same date as their conference. But such is life on Paddy's Day in America.
# Posted on March 18th 2005 by Phantom Button
Re: The Luck of the Irish: St Pat's 2005
I left work half an hour early, went home, worked on a writing project, had a lovely long fiddle play and a dinner of homemade Mexican food, and went to bed.
Blissful evening. ;)
# Posted on March 18th 2005 by sara g
Re: The Luck of the Irish: St Pat's 2005
My husband and I both have flu. It's the first St Patricks for a few years when I haven't even got my fiddle out of the case!!
I've had a short play today but I need to get gig fit by Friday!
# Posted on March 20th 2005 by Tarrantella