Search the Community

So, tell us about your gig last Sunday... OK? As for me, last Sunday I had a St. Pat's / 40th birthday solo gig on concertina. The birthday boy, his wife and child and mother-in-law were all from Ireland. I think most of the other folks there were too, at least back a generation or two. What a scene. It was in a dark back room of a dive bar here in Brooklyn. There were about 30 folks, 8 of them little girls under 5. No one could tell me why all the kids were girls. Open tab and some great draft at the bar up front. There was quite a bit of dancing as well as nonstop talking and they clapped after every tune. Whenever they started in dancing, I would switch to polkas... which seemed to fit what they were doing. The mother-in-law made a point of coming over at the end to tell me that it would have been a waste not to dance to such good music. She grew up in Clare and hearing all those tunes made her nostalgic. She did not mind or even notice that I was playing Irish tunes in a style that was not at all from Clare. It turns out that the birthday dad was a tattoo artist, which explaines why most of the men had full tattoos up their arms. If the women had tattoos too, they were not showing, so I don't know.