A few of us ITM players had a great time last night playing half time for a womens roller derby game. You might be wondering what the connection was between Irish music and women's roller derby? One of our sessioneers is a player. Unfortunately we couldn't even get our 15 minutes of fame because we had to use some of that time to hustle out, play to session speed then hustle off, sort of an Irish version of American Idol before the ladies ran us down warming up for the next match. Thanks to a ban on evil libations the crowd was respectful and appreciative. So the question goes begging, what weird venues have you played recently? Dog races? Strip mall grand openings? Irish versions of Christmas parties? Come on, the world wants to know!
I once played a session at a salmon fishing lodge on the Hebrides to a party of German fishermen and women. I hope that qualifies. The germans who were great fun and very generous with cash, drink, food and banter, just wanted to hear Flower of Scotland over and over again - and I'm English.
I played the bass mandolin on the back of a flatbed truck rolling along in a parade. Nobody really thought this through, though - while the whole mandolin orchestra was able to squeeze onto the truck, it was absolutely impossible to hear anything that we played over the engine noise.
Not really Irish, I guess, but definitely a strange experience.
I have played in a bingo hall - it was the birthday of the manager, who was Irish, and as well as us, the Scratch Band ( scots, channel island, jewish, and I don't remember the fourth component of this ensemble ) there was the Riverdance Tribute Troupe.
Bingo halls are the third level of Hell, IMNSHO.
PS; why should you never stand behind Satan in a Post Office queue ?
Couple of years ago I was lucky enough to be able to help provide some music on the opening afternoon of the local CAMRA beer festival which is held in the crypt of the Liverpool Catholic Cathedral. Tickets are very hard to come by and I had given up hope of getting in. So getting in, getting to play some tunes and getting some free beer to boot was a real stroke of luck
Not a gig, but I once played in a session in the bathroom of a semi-derelict house in Milltown Malbay. The electricity supply to the house had been cut off and that was the only room with candles in it. One musician, being of lofty proportions, perched upon the washbasin (which broke loose from the wall) and another sat in the bath, whilst I assumed prime position with my mandolin on the throne itself (pants firmly around my waist, I hasten to add).
Our group (Gallowglass in Wheeling, WV) had a wedding reception gig a couple of weeks ago at the TALA (Trans Allegheny Lunatic Asylum). Yes, it IS the one that has been on "Ghost Hunters" and will be on upcoming ghost shows as well!!! Strange, but a lot of fun!
oh - and atop a float during a 4-hour carnival procession in Cagliari. The only hairy moment was having something brush over my head (I had wisely chosen the highest perch at the back of the trailer). I looked back and say a "danger high voltage" sign swinging from the overhead tram cables.
I too have played on the back of a truck for the local Xmas parade. For a few years the Irish Club entered a float with lots of the children dressed up on the back and us musos sitting on hay bales playing away - luckily miked up so we could be heard. It's funny how parades seem to take forever when you are on the street watching, but go by incredibly fast when actually on a float. We didn't want to stop playing when we were finished, so kept on as our truck weaved its way back down various side streets, and jeered at the pipe band members who were walking back.
I was in a band that once did a gig in the Kingdome in Seattle. This was a huge sports arena that could seat 60,000 or more. It was used for baseball and football (even basketball for a while) as well as concerts (Paul McCartney and Wings, Rolling Stones, etc....)
We played before a baseball game one night and the place was practically empty -- maybe 2500 people. The highlight for me was having my face plastered on the "big screen" then getting a photo of it later. The Kingdome is gone now. It was falling apart and was blown up one day (or blown in, I guess you would say).
Every August, for 15 years, I played in a county fair grounds barn for a Horse Stud auction, three hours straight, while a retired NFL football linebacker shouted the attributes of the stud in the ring. More than once I was nearly toppled by a runaway horse in search of a suitable depository.
Originally, I was told that the exposure would do me good, but after a while I couldn't resist the thought of an annual Sperm Fest gig.
I played one of the last shows in the Fabulous Marble Bar in Baltimore, Md. It had once been home to the likes of Fred Astaire but had fallen on hard times and by 1985 it was host to lowly punk rock shows. The place was absolutely filthy and disgusting. We opened for Henry Rollins. The crowd was filled with Skinheads. It was a scary frickin' place but as I recall only one fight broke out....
the punk days were filled with strange people and strange venues. Playing Irish music hasn't been quite so dangerous!
Our band once played a car show, nothing terribly odd about that.
But after we did the song New York Girls, which contains the line, "Don't mess around with women boys, You're safer 'round Cape Horn", a young man from crowd came up and asked if we had said, "You're safer with Gay Porn".
To this day I still can't do that song without cracking up.
Just try doing your "the show must go on" bit in a large, near-empty pub in Port Isaac in which two w@nkered blokes are attempting to beat the living scheidt out of each other in a dispute over a game of pool. Another time in the same pub the gaffer sat us right next to the gents' toilet door. It was a relatively fragrant experience, exacerbated by the fact that we frequently had to lean out of the way to avoid being poked in the eye, or the f-hole, by the back ends of pool cues. How we suffer for our art.
I recently played in the town on New London Wisconsin which for the week in March surrounding Saint Patrick's day had changed their name on the population sign to New Dublin. The building was being remodeled, had a garbage dump behind a large fenced in area in the back, had exposed plywood in 90 percent of it's three rooms and even one of the bars was completely made of plywood. They had no beer on tap, and only had cans of Miller, Budweiser, and Pabst. The proposed stage area was a disco, enclosed in a partial wall which would have completely obscured the drummer, but something better was worked out, where we set up our whole system directly in front of the following band's set up.
I did one gig with a couple of mates at a local university. They had a market going on campus one weekday lunchtime, and wanted something to make it more 'interesting'.
They had four stalls booked, but only two showed up. The musos outnumbered the stallholders, and bemused the hell out of the students wandering through, who were obviously wondering why security wasn't moving on the three hobos who'd strolled onto campus to busk.
We had a great time, sneaking beers out to where we were playing, snaking cigarettes in a 'non-smoking area' (which in a pseudo-American burst of health promotion was an open air concourse the size of a football field), and since we never had an audience of more than three people at any one time, playing whatever we felt like. And we got well paid for it too.....
We played at an outdoor festival once just on the other side of a fence from a herd of cows. Fortunately, the cows seemed to like what we were doing, and did not try to interfere with the music. And I used to work on my uncle's farm sometimes in the summers, so the odor didn't bother me.
I attended a festival one time on a large rural station, activities were held in the only structure on the huge acreage. There were no fire fighting facilities, so the organisers thought to place numerous buckets of water around the building just in case of a fire during the night. Next morning, no water at all...cows drank it.
Fidkid, a few other good friends, and I played on the shuttle bus that took older folks to the Detroit St. Patrick's day parade. Sorta like going to camp. The reels on the bus went round, round, round.
I went to a gunshop to buy a pistol case for my flute. When i got it out to see if a certain case fitted, he begged me to play it to him, so the weirdest place i played in was a gunshop.
Played a remote venue in the French Alps a couple of weeks ago. When we had driven as close as we could they sent sleighs to pick us up, bells and all. No roads at all, just hotels rising out of an ice field. They used a Snow-cat to get us out after the gig.
I once played to an entire top deck full of drunken revellers, on a London night bus. Such was the force of their rhythmic stomping, the driver stopped the bus, marched upstairs and threatened to jettison us all from the bus.
Once , as a begginer, I sat down stairs in a (I thought) empty bus and played a tune, drowsy Maggie, each time getting faster. When I stopped the top deck roared with applause! Itallian Students...
Arround that time we used to busk the tube stations, me as backer . We would walk up a platform playing, 2 lovely young ladies collecting out front, Whistle Mandola and Guitar. We then would move into a carraige, play a set and move on. Ah the joys of youth . I gather things are a bit tighter ikn the underground these days!
Not my gig (obviously) but we went to see Altan at Sidmouth a couple of summers ago. The organisers in their wisdom had strewn the grassy ground inside the marquee with what appeared to be partially-rotted straw in order to soak up some of the rainwater and stop us getting too muddy. 'Twas a dank and humid evening and it wasn't long before 143.5 billion biting midges, attracted by the pong of manure and a thousand sweaty humans, swept in through the open door. Altan were certainly up to scratch - and so was everyone else! Anyone else from here there that night...?
I have been working on archival material in the Argyll and Bute Psychiatric Hospital in Lochgilphead. About a month ago I was roped into a running a session one night for the (current) patients there (useless fact of the day: that is one of the few 19th century lunatic asylums that is still a working psychiatric hospital). That was pretty weird. It mostly consisted of playing Streets of Laredo and Loch Lomond about four or five times, as the patient who requested them did so repeatedly throughout the two or so hours I was there.
I've also had tunes in the boy's loo of a high school in Rutherglen.
I played christmas carols and background music for my mother-in-law's Society for the Hard of Hearing Christmas party a few times
(I know there were family member there who could hear!)
As far as box goes, I have played in a suite at the Waldorf Astoria in New York, and practiced in the rose garden of the Grand Hotel on Mackinac Island. I suppose those aren't too strange.
Played once to a pasture of Highland Cattle just to see if they liked it. They came right to the fence and stayed as long as I played. They either liked it or were really curious.
In a kind of minstrel's gallery looking over the lobby of the Palliser Hotel in Calgary, for a benefit. It was maybe 20 feet above the crowd and seemed like it hadn't been used in many decades. There was the constant feeling that we would plunge to our deaths if the boards underfoot were rotten.
The banjo picker in the band I used to play in was the head medical honcho at Broadmoor (the UK's most notorious prison hospital) and every year they had a BBQ in the walled (fortunately) garden and our band, not surprisingly, got the gig. We were allowed to talk to the inmates, if we wanted to, but on no account were we allowed to ask them what they were in for. There at the time were one of the Kray twins, the mass murderer Denis Nielsen and the Yorkshire Ripper Peter Sutcliffe.
I also remember playing my fiddle in the back of a '61 Holden crossing the Nullarbor Plain back in 1976.
Once we played for a Ceili in a Minstrels gallery above the dance floor, It was a revalation to see all the patterns on the floor made by the dancers, a birds eye view.
I had a gig playing on a covered 'stage' trailer in a field. The presenter, a christian fundamentalist, had put up a Confederate flag as the back drop. The band wouldn't play as long as the flag was up, so they took it down.
We started playing and they brought out a Maypole and danced in the grassy field.
A group I once played with who played some Irish music among other things was invited to play for a classroom of inner-city high school kids in California years ago on St. Patrick's Day. The teacher of the class was a friend of a friend and she figured they could have some Irish music played for them that day. We got paid a bit so what the hell. We played the two jigs we knew and a couple of songs, Star of the County Down and a slower number I can't remember. They weren't too interested, not that we were very good.
I once was on vacation to Chaing Mai, Thailand. I had an 8 hour layover in Bangkok. Rather than drop a couple hundred on an expensive hotel room for less than 6 hours sleep, I hung out overnight at the airport. After about midnight, the airport became a ghost town. To while away 8 hours with nothing to do I pulled out my fiddle and played for 6 hours.
I once played on a flatbed stage in Ukiah for some such city celebration--you know-- (fill in the blank) Days. Pioneer Days,
Cucumber Festival, Egg and Potato Festival, you get the idea.
It was in the summer during a heat wave. There was no shade and the temperature was 112 degrees. Besides dripping sweat onto my fiddle and mandolins, they were going out of tune every piece we played. It was a fun challenge adjusting my fingering sharp to compensate on the fiddle as it detuned flat virtually a quarter tone every piece!
I once played for a fiddler friend's funeral. I 'fiddled' behind his casket as it was brought to and from the mortuary for the service, and from the hearse to the graveyard plot for the burial ceremony. I ended with Amazing Grace. I played all his favorite tunes at the reception afterwards. I truly felt like a piper in the way I followed his casket playing fiddle en-route to the burial.
I played for a cattle branding some years ago. They did it the old fashioned cowboy way, bulldogging the calfs and castrating them with a pocket knife red hot branding iron, the whole kit and kaboodle. The bloody oysters were thrown into a bucket for the barbeque. Rocky Mtn. oysters go great with whiskey and irish music. Tasty treats and tunes!
back when I played 5 string banjo, I took my banjo with me (it was a hundred dollar "toy" "junk" banjo that had a great sound for being so cheap, out on a group bike trip to a popular local camping site. It poured rain all night and was so cold the next day we managed to get a ride home in the back of a box truck, the 5 string banjo led the sing along most of the way home.
Not a gig, but once had tunes on the deck of a tall ship in the middle of Halifax Harbour. Why? Because I happened to have my flute with me, and my friend had brought a whistle. So, naturally, tunes must be had
I once played for a contra dance during a windy powerful thunderstorm. Halfway through the dance the power went out. We (the band) moved to sit in the center of the dance floor and played acoustically the rest of the dance. With only sparse candlelight to light the hall, the dancers danced around us the rest of the evening.
I once played for a 3 day Tribe Ride (a local horseman's association in Modoc County made up of men from all walks of life and all professions). They had one semi trucked in for the food, one for the tents, and one for the booze. My job was to play a set for their lunch and a set before their dinner meals. They'd pack the band and my sound system into a Jeep and drive to the destination of the morning's ride, so we could set up and play for their lunch. (They ran a generator to power up the sound system!) Mind you this was 30 plus miles into the wilderness!
When lunch was over, we packed up and raced back to main camp to set up all over for the pre-dinner performance.
Got to play plenty of tunes. Never seen men put away so much booze! Beautiful scenery, but it sure was dusty.
The club car of the AMTRAK between Washington DC and Florida, around 03:00, somewhere in the Carolinas, going at top speed, bouncing around as if the train itself was on acid, pounding on my OM in time with the rails, the windows like black holes with rain pounding on them except when the lightning flashed. Alone except for the occasional pass through. Played for two or three hours, most of what I knew. One passerby later asked what I was playing and said it sounded like 2 or 3 people playing at once...one of the nicest compliments I've ever received.
Animal magic features large in all this, I notice.
It is blindingly obvious that back in the days of the Pure Drop, the Tradition came into its own principally as an aural stimulus to rutting animals, at large dog and horse mating convocations. After all, these were the only beings allowed to have sex in Ireland back then. The populace attended in throngs for vicarious release, as well as drink, bets, etc. This is why there are so many tunes about dogs. The most esteemed musicians were those that could throw an animal into transports of ardour for the longest time and to most effect (;-.
Of course, the puritanical cultural ascendancy obliterated nigh-on all evidence of this, and a whole way of life was lost to recorded history. A spurious narrative of dances and domestic music was fabricated to replace it (;-.
But their tentacles did not extend to the New World, where in one place or another the real tradition, as described, evidently carries on (:- .
The most unusual, and moving, venue I attended (as a spectator) was at Swinford a few years ago. We were on a guided tour of the town and had a piper along with the guide. Occasionally we'd come to a halt at some historic locality, the guide would say a few words, and then the piper would play a tune. The end of the tour was at the Famine Cemetery, and here the piper played a lament. You'll find my video of it on YouTube under http://www.youtube.com/lazyhound (along with a lot of set dancing in the Square at Kilrush a couple of years previously).
I spent the afternoon playing GHP in Portumna Castle in an old Tower, I love playing in big, old echo-y spaces with History.
..I really enjoyed the Casals link, nice one. His Bow looks very tight, interesting...
Cello bows need to be a bit stiffer and heavier than fiddle bows to get those cello strings moving. Casals came from an era when soloists were skilled in projecting their sound to the back of a 2000-seat concert hall, playing over an orchestra and sans microphone. They still do, of course, but what with radio, TV and recording studios, and playing in 20000-seat stadiums, perhaps some of them don't use that skill as much as they used to.
Interestingly, my violin teacher uses a cello bow when she plays viola in her band, both live and on CD.
As a beginner I used to play my pipes out on the Rocks on the sea shore... And I still row out to an Island to play sometimes... Im told the sound could be coming from anywhere .....
strangest venues
strangest venues
A few of us ITM players had a great time last night playing half time for a womens roller derby game. You might be wondering what the connection was between Irish music and women's roller derby? One of our sessioneers is a player. Unfortunately we couldn't even get our 15 minutes of fame because we had to use some of that time to hustle out, play to session speed then hustle off, sort of an Irish version of American Idol before the ladies ran us down warming up for the next match. Thanks to a ban on evil libations the crowd was respectful and appreciative. So the question goes begging, what weird venues have you played recently? Dog races? Strip mall grand openings? Irish versions of Christmas parties? Come on, the world wants to know!
# Posted on March 28th 2010 by jrathbun
Re: strangest venues
I once played a session at a salmon fishing lodge on the Hebrides to a party of German fishermen and women. I hope that qualifies. The germans who were great fun and very generous with cash, drink, food and banter, just wanted to hear Flower of Scotland over and over again - and I'm English.
# Posted on March 28th 2010 by minstrel33
Re: strangest venues
Many years ago I Played a set of Highland Pipes sat on the back of a motorbike side car driving through town..... no occasion, just for fun.
# Posted on March 28th 2010 by piobagusfidil
Re: strangest venues
I played the bass mandolin on the back of a flatbed truck rolling along in a parade. Nobody really thought this through, though - while the whole mandolin orchestra was able to squeeze onto the truck, it was absolutely impossible to hear anything that we played over the engine noise.
Not really Irish, I guess, but definitely a strange experience.
# Posted on March 28th 2010 by Jon Kiparsky
Re: strangest venues
I have played in a bingo hall - it was the birthday of the manager, who was Irish, and as well as us, the Scratch Band ( scots, channel island, jewish, and I don't remember the fourth component of this ensemble ) there was the Riverdance Tribute Troupe.
Bingo halls are the third level of Hell, IMNSHO.
PS; why should you never stand behind Satan in a Post Office queue ?
Because the Devil takes many forms.
# Posted on March 28th 2010 by Guernsey Pete
Re: strangest venues
Once did a gig at a dog mateing fair. The idea was we played reels whilst dog owners wandered around sussing out partners for their pets.
# Posted on March 28th 2010 by riggers
Re: strangest venues
Couple of years ago I was lucky enough to be able to help provide some music on the opening afternoon of the local CAMRA beer festival which is held in the crypt of the Liverpool Catholic Cathedral. Tickets are very hard to come by and I had given up hope of getting in. So getting in, getting to play some tunes and getting some free beer to boot was a real stroke of luck
# Posted on March 28th 2010 by flossie
Re: strangest venues
Not a gig, but I once played in a session in the bathroom of a semi-derelict house in Milltown Malbay. The electricity supply to the house had been cut off and that was the only room with candles in it. One musician, being of lofty proportions, perched upon the washbasin (which broke loose from the wall) and another sat in the bath, whilst I assumed prime position with my mandolin on the throne itself (pants firmly around my waist, I hasten to add).
# Posted on March 28th 2010 by CreadurMawnOrganig
Re: strangest venues
Our group (Gallowglass in Wheeling, WV) had a wedding reception gig a couple of weeks ago at the TALA (Trans Allegheny Lunatic Asylum). Yes, it IS the one that has been on "Ghost Hunters" and will be on upcoming ghost shows as well!!! Strange, but a lot of fun!
Pat
# Posted on March 28th 2010 by plunk111
Re: strangest venues
The association room of a women's prison (although we kept the captive audience jokes to ourselves!).
# Posted on March 28th 2010 by Mark Harmer
Re: strangest venues
oh - and atop a float during a 4-hour carnival procession in Cagliari. The only hairy moment was having something brush over my head (I had wisely chosen the highest perch at the back of the trailer). I looked back and say a "danger high voltage" sign swinging from the overhead tram cables.
# Posted on March 28th 2010 by Mark Harmer
Re: strangest venues
I too have played on the back of a truck for the local Xmas parade. For a few years the Irish Club entered a float with lots of the children dressed up on the back and us musos sitting on hay bales playing away - luckily miked up so we could be heard. It's funny how parades seem to take forever when you are on the street watching, but go by incredibly fast when actually on a float. We didn't want to stop playing when we were finished, so kept on as our truck weaved its way back down various side streets, and jeered at the pipe band members who were walking back.
# Posted on March 28th 2010 by Bredna
Re: strangest venues
...Also stretching the topic a bit, I played with a klezmer band at a vicarage, for the vicar's 60th birthday.
# Posted on March 28th 2010 by CreadurMawnOrganig
Re: strangest venues
I was in a band that once did a gig in the Kingdome in Seattle. This was a huge sports arena that could seat 60,000 or more. It was used for baseball and football (even basketball for a while) as well as concerts (Paul McCartney and Wings, Rolling Stones, etc....)
We played before a baseball game one night and the place was practically empty -- maybe 2500 people. The highlight for me was having my face plastered on the "big screen" then getting a photo of it later. The Kingdome is gone now. It was falling apart and was blown up one day (or blown in, I guess you would say).
# Posted on March 28th 2010 by John Culhane
Re: strangest venues
Every August, for 15 years, I played in a county fair grounds barn for a Horse Stud auction, three hours straight, while a retired NFL football linebacker shouted the attributes of the stud in the ring. More than once I was nearly toppled by a runaway horse in search of a suitable depository.
Originally, I was told that the exposure would do me good, but after a while I couldn't resist the thought of an annual Sperm Fest gig.
# Posted on March 28th 2010 by Toppish
Re: strangest venues
"dog mateing fair."
" Horse Stud auction"
Okay, I'll bite. Which tunes are *best*ial for animal performance?
# Posted on March 28th 2010 by oldstrings
Re: strangest venues
"My Darling's A Sheep"
"The Tar Road to Sly Goat"
"Jackson's Morning Brush"
"Sheep Big, Sheep More"...
I could go on, but I don't have a guy with a snare drum and hi hat sitting next to me
# Posted on March 28th 2010 by bc_box_player
Re: strangest venues
I played one of the last shows in the Fabulous Marble Bar in Baltimore, Md. It had once been home to the likes of Fred Astaire but had fallen on hard times and by 1985 it was host to lowly punk rock shows. The place was absolutely filthy and disgusting. We opened for Henry Rollins. The crowd was filled with Skinheads. It was a scary frickin' place but as I recall only one fight broke out....
the punk days were filled with strange people and strange venues. Playing Irish music hasn't been quite so dangerous!
# Posted on March 28th 2010 by shanty
Re: strangest venues
boom chick
# Posted on March 29th 2010 by mcknowall
Re: strangest venues
Our band once played a car show, nothing terribly odd about that.
But after we did the song New York Girls, which contains the line, "Don't mess around with women boys, You're safer 'round Cape Horn", a young man from crowd came up and asked if we had said, "You're safer with Gay Porn".
To this day I still can't do that song without cracking up.
# Posted on March 29th 2010 by CleverName
Re: strangest venues
Just try doing your "the show must go on" bit in a large, near-empty pub in Port Isaac in which two w@nkered blokes are attempting to beat the living scheidt out of each other in a dispute over a game of pool. Another time in the same pub the gaffer sat us right next to the gents' toilet door. It was a relatively fragrant experience, exacerbated by the fact that we frequently had to lean out of the way to avoid being poked in the eye, or the f-hole, by the back ends of pool cues. How we suffer for our art.
# Posted on March 29th 2010 by Steve Shaw
Re: strangest venues
I recently played in the town on New London Wisconsin which for the week in March surrounding Saint Patrick's day had changed their name on the population sign to New Dublin. The building was being remodeled, had a garbage dump behind a large fenced in area in the back, had exposed plywood in 90 percent of it's three rooms and even one of the bars was completely made of plywood. They had no beer on tap, and only had cans of Miller, Budweiser, and Pabst. The proposed stage area was a disco, enclosed in a partial wall which would have completely obscured the drummer, but something better was worked out, where we set up our whole system directly in front of the following band's set up.
# Posted on March 29th 2010 by Earl Cameron
Re: strangest venues
I did one gig with a couple of mates at a local university. They had a market going on campus one weekday lunchtime, and wanted something to make it more 'interesting'.
They had four stalls booked, but only two showed up. The musos outnumbered the stallholders, and bemused the hell out of the students wandering through, who were obviously wondering why security wasn't moving on the three hobos who'd strolled onto campus to busk.
We had a great time, sneaking beers out to where we were playing, snaking cigarettes in a 'non-smoking area' (which in a pseudo-American burst of health promotion was an open air concourse the size of a football field), and since we never had an audience of more than three people at any one time, playing whatever we felt like. And we got well paid for it too.....
# Posted on March 29th 2010 by bc_box_player
Re: strangest venues
We played at an outdoor festival once just on the other side of a fence from a herd of cows. Fortunately, the cows seemed to like what we were doing, and did not try to interfere with the music. And I used to work on my uncle's farm sometimes in the summers, so the odor didn't bother me.
# Posted on March 29th 2010 by AlBrown
Re: strangest venues
I attended a festival one time on a large rural station, activities were held in the only structure on the huge acreage. There were no fire fighting facilities, so the organisers thought to place numerous buckets of water around the building just in case of a fire during the night. Next morning, no water at all...cows drank it.
# Posted on March 29th 2010 by Skull Duggeraigh Dubh
Re: strangest venues
Fidkid, a few other good friends, and I played on the shuttle bus that took older folks to the Detroit St. Patrick's day parade. Sorta like going to camp. The reels on the bus went round, round, round.
# Posted on March 29th 2010 by feardearg
Re: strangest venues
On the platform at Brora station.
# Posted on March 29th 2010 by Solidmahog
Re: strangest venues
I went to a gunshop to buy a pistol case for my flute. When i got it out to see if a certain case fitted, he begged me to play it to him, so the weirdest place i played in was a gunshop.
# Posted on March 29th 2010 by TMB
Re: strangest venues
Played a remote venue in the French Alps a couple of weeks ago. When we had driven as close as we could they sent sleighs to pick us up, bells and all. No roads at all, just hotels rising out of an ice field. They used a Snow-cat to get us out after the gig.
# Posted on March 29th 2010 by curiadydrwm
Re: strangest venues
I once played to an entire top deck full of drunken revellers, on a London night bus. Such was the force of their rhythmic stomping, the driver stopped the bus, marched upstairs and threatened to jettison us all from the bus.
# Posted on March 29th 2010 by CreadurMawnOrganig
Re: strangest venues
Once , as a begginer, I sat down stairs in a (I thought) empty bus and played a tune, drowsy Maggie, each time getting faster. When I stopped the top deck roared with applause! Itallian Students...
Arround that time we used to busk the tube stations, me as backer . We would walk up a platform playing, 2 lovely young ladies collecting out front, Whistle Mandola and Guitar. We then would move into a carraige, play a set and move on. Ah the joys of youth . I gather things are a bit tighter ikn the underground these days!
# Posted on March 29th 2010 by piobagusfidil
Re: strangest venues
Not my gig (obviously) but we went to see Altan at Sidmouth a couple of summers ago. The organisers in their wisdom had strewn the grassy ground inside the marquee with what appeared to be partially-rotted straw in order to soak up some of the rainwater and stop us getting too muddy. 'Twas a dank and humid evening and it wasn't long before 143.5 billion biting midges, attracted by the pong of manure and a thousand sweaty humans, swept in through the open door. Altan were certainly up to scratch - and so was everyone else! Anyone else from here there that night...?
# Posted on March 29th 2010 by Steve Shaw
Re: strangest venues
OK, before I read the rest of the thread you are right.
A roller derby match with NO BOOZE is the STRANGEST venue ever.
# Posted on March 29th 2010 by SWFL Fiddler
Re: strangest venues
Wow, amazing stuff folks!
Once we had a regular session at a Mexican restaurant, thus pre-dating the new Chieftains album by several years, thank you very much.
# Posted on March 29th 2010 by SWFL Fiddler
Re: strangest venues
I have been working on archival material in the Argyll and Bute Psychiatric Hospital in Lochgilphead. About a month ago I was roped into a running a session one night for the (current) patients there (useless fact of the day: that is one of the few 19th century lunatic asylums that is still a working psychiatric hospital). That was pretty weird. It mostly consisted of playing Streets of Laredo and Loch Lomond about four or five times, as the patient who requested them did so repeatedly throughout the two or so hours I was there.
I've also had tunes in the boy's loo of a high school in Rutherglen.
# Posted on March 29th 2010 by DrSilverSpear
Re: strangest venues
I played christmas carols and background music for my mother-in-law's Society for the Hard of Hearing Christmas party a few times
(I know there were family member there who could hear!)
As far as box goes, I have played in a suite at the Waldorf Astoria in New York, and practiced in the rose garden of the Grand Hotel on Mackinac Island. I suppose those aren't too strange.
# Posted on March 29th 2010 by zippydw
Re: strangest venues
Played once to a pasture of Highland Cattle just to see if they liked it. They came right to the fence and stayed as long as I played. They either liked it or were really curious.
(played Scottish fiddle music of course)
Mary
# Posted on March 29th 2010 by Antikhntr
Re: strangest venues
In a kind of minstrel's gallery looking over the lobby of the Palliser Hotel in Calgary, for a benefit. It was maybe 20 feet above the crowd and seemed like it hadn't been used in many decades. There was the constant feeling that we would plunge to our deaths if the boards underfoot were rotten.
# Posted on March 29th 2010 by grego
Re: strangest venues
The banjo picker in the band I used to play in was the head medical honcho at Broadmoor (the UK's most notorious prison hospital) and every year they had a BBQ in the walled (fortunately) garden and our band, not surprisingly, got the gig. We were allowed to talk to the inmates, if we wanted to, but on no account were we allowed to ask them what they were in for. There at the time were one of the Kray twins, the mass murderer Denis Nielsen and the Yorkshire Ripper Peter Sutcliffe.
I also remember playing my fiddle in the back of a '61 Holden crossing the Nullarbor Plain back in 1976.
Happy days
# Posted on March 29th 2010 by Geoff Pollitt
Re: strangest venues
Once we played for a Ceili in a Minstrels gallery above the dance floor, It was a revalation to see all the patterns on the floor made by the dancers, a birds eye view.
# Posted on March 29th 2010 by piobagusfidil
Re: strangest venues
I had a gig playing on a covered 'stage' trailer in a field. The presenter, a christian fundamentalist, had put up a Confederate flag as the back drop. The band wouldn't play as long as the flag was up, so they took it down.
We started playing and they brought out a Maypole and danced in the grassy field.
It was very 'Wickerman'
# Posted on March 29th 2010 by Toppish
Re: strangest venues
A group I once played with who played some Irish music among other things was invited to play for a classroom of inner-city high school kids in California years ago on St. Patrick's Day. The teacher of the class was a friend of a friend and she figured they could have some Irish music played for them that day. We got paid a bit so what the hell. We played the two jigs we knew and a couple of songs, Star of the County Down and a slower number I can't remember. They weren't too interested, not that we were very good.
# Posted on March 29th 2010 by Jimmy B
Re: strangest venues
Mr Pollitt, sir, that was name-dropping to end all name-dropping
# Posted on March 29th 2010 by Trevor Jennings
Re: strangest venues
oldstrings~
"Which tunes are *best*ial for animal performance?"
Let's see...how about:
Hell Among The Yearlings
Wild Horses At Stoney Point
Dogs Among The Bushes
# Posted on March 29th 2010 by fiddlerdan
Re: strangest venues
I once was on vacation to Chaing Mai, Thailand. I had an 8 hour layover in Bangkok. Rather than drop a couple hundred on an expensive hotel room for less than 6 hours sleep, I hung out overnight at the airport. After about midnight, the airport became a ghost town. To while away 8 hours with nothing to do I pulled out my fiddle and played for 6 hours.
# Posted on March 29th 2010 by fiddlerdan
Re: strangest venues
I once played on a flatbed stage in Ukiah for some such city celebration--you know-- (fill in the blank) Days. Pioneer Days,
Cucumber Festival, Egg and Potato Festival, you get the idea.
It was in the summer during a heat wave. There was no shade and the temperature was 112 degrees. Besides dripping sweat onto my fiddle and mandolins, they were going out of tune every piece we played. It was a fun challenge adjusting my fingering sharp to compensate on the fiddle as it detuned flat virtually a quarter tone every piece!
# Posted on March 29th 2010 by fiddlerdan
Re: strangest venues
I once played for a fiddler friend's funeral. I 'fiddled' behind his casket as it was brought to and from the mortuary for the service, and from the hearse to the graveyard plot for the burial ceremony. I ended with Amazing Grace. I played all his favorite tunes at the reception afterwards. I truly felt like a piper in the way I followed his casket playing fiddle en-route to the burial.
# Posted on March 29th 2010 by fiddlerdan
Re: strangest venues
I played for a cattle branding some years ago. They did it the old fashioned cowboy way, bulldogging the calfs and castrating them with a pocket knife red hot branding iron, the whole kit and kaboodle. The bloody oysters were thrown into a bucket for the barbeque. Rocky Mtn. oysters go great with whiskey and irish music. Tasty treats and tunes!
# Posted on March 29th 2010 by Gone to work
Re: strangest venues
Great stuff! Thanks...
# Posted on March 29th 2010 by ceolachan
Re: strangest venues
back when I played 5 string banjo, I took my banjo with me (it was a hundred dollar "toy" "junk" banjo that had a great sound for being so cheap, out on a group bike trip to a popular local camping site. It poured rain all night and was so cold the next day we managed to get a ride home in the back of a box truck, the 5 string banjo led the sing along most of the way home.
# Posted on March 29th 2010 by Earl Cameron
Re: strangest venues
Not a gig, but once had tunes on the deck of a tall ship in the middle of Halifax Harbour. Why? Because I happened to have my flute with me, and my friend had brought a whistle. So, naturally, tunes must be had
# Posted on March 29th 2010 by ingridrt
Re: strangest venues
We played tunes at a nudist ranch last summer. They seemed to like it, naturally. The band remained clothed.
# Posted on March 30th 2010 by Dont
Re: strangest venues
Good job. You wouldn't want to be going home with bellows nipple.
# Posted on March 30th 2010 by Steve Shaw
Re: strangest venues
I once played for a contra dance during a windy powerful thunderstorm. Halfway through the dance the power went out. We (the band) moved to sit in the center of the dance floor and played acoustically the rest of the dance. With only sparse candlelight to light the hall, the dancers danced around us the rest of the evening.
# Posted on March 30th 2010 by fiddlerdan
Re: strangest venues
I once played for a 3 day Tribe Ride (a local horseman's association in Modoc County made up of men from all walks of life and all professions). They had one semi trucked in for the food, one for the tents, and one for the booze. My job was to play a set for their lunch and a set before their dinner meals. They'd pack the band and my sound system into a Jeep and drive to the destination of the morning's ride, so we could set up and play for their lunch. (They ran a generator to power up the sound system!) Mind you this was 30 plus miles into the wilderness!
When lunch was over, we packed up and raced back to main camp to set up all over for the pre-dinner performance.
Got to play plenty of tunes. Never seen men put away so much booze! Beautiful scenery, but it sure was dusty.
# Posted on March 30th 2010 by fiddlerdan
Re: strangest venues
The club car of the AMTRAK between Washington DC and Florida, around 03:00, somewhere in the Carolinas, going at top speed, bouncing around as if the train itself was on acid, pounding on my OM in time with the rails, the windows like black holes with rain pounding on them except when the lightning flashed. Alone except for the occasional pass through. Played for two or three hours, most of what I knew. One passerby later asked what I was playing and said it sounded like 2 or 3 people playing at once...one of the nicest compliments I've ever received.
# Posted on March 30th 2010 by justjim
Re: strangest venues
PS; Re Satan;
And you don't want to be the last in the queue behind Satan, as The Devil Takes The Hindmost.
# Posted on March 30th 2010 by Guernsey Pete
Re: strangest venues
You're right Trevor. Shameless name-dropping.
I blame society and celebrity culture.
# Posted on March 31st 2010 by Geoff Pollitt
Re: strangest venues
Animal magic features large in all this, I notice.
It is blindingly obvious that back in the days of the Pure Drop, the Tradition came into its own principally as an aural stimulus to rutting animals, at large dog and horse mating convocations. After all, these were the only beings allowed to have sex in Ireland back then. The populace attended in throngs for vicarious release, as well as drink, bets, etc. This is why there are so many tunes about dogs. The most esteemed musicians were those that could throw an animal into transports of ardour for the longest time and to most effect (;-.
Of course, the puritanical cultural ascendancy obliterated nigh-on all evidence of this, and a whole way of life was lost to recorded history. A spurious narrative of dances and domestic music was fabricated to replace it (;-.
But their tentacles did not extend to the New World, where in one place or another the real tradition, as described, evidently carries on (:- .
# Posted on March 31st 2010 by nicholas
Re: strangest venues
The most unusual, and moving, venue I attended (as a spectator) was at Swinford a few years ago. We were on a guided tour of the town and had a piper along with the guide. Occasionally we'd come to a halt at some historic locality, the guide would say a few words, and then the piper would play a tune. The end of the tour was at the Famine Cemetery, and here the piper played a lament. You'll find my video of it on YouTube under http://www.youtube.com/lazyhound (along with a lot of set dancing in the Square at Kilrush a couple of years previously).
# Posted on April 1st 2010 by Trevor Jennings
Re: strangest venues
I spent the afternoon playing GHP in Portumna Castle in an old Tower, I love playing in big, old echo-y spaces with History.
..I really enjoyed the Casals link, nice one. His Bow looks very tight, interesting...
# Posted on April 1st 2010 by piobagusfidil
Re: strangest venues
Cello bows need to be a bit stiffer and heavier than fiddle bows to get those cello strings moving. Casals came from an era when soloists were skilled in projecting their sound to the back of a 2000-seat concert hall, playing over an orchestra and sans microphone. They still do, of course, but what with radio, TV and recording studios, and playing in 20000-seat stadiums, perhaps some of them don't use that skill as much as they used to.
Interestingly, my violin teacher uses a cello bow when she plays viola in her band, both live and on CD.
# Posted on April 1st 2010 by Trevor Jennings
Re: strangest venues
As a beginner I used to play my pipes out on the Rocks on the sea shore... And I still row out to an Island to play sometimes... Im told the sound could be coming from anywhere .....
Hmm, I use a Viola bow now for my fiddle....
# Posted on April 1st 2010 by piobagusfidil