Sessions In And Around Pearl River New York The Weekend

[Lawrence Reeves]

Hanging out in a session during the mid atlantic fleadh this past weekend in Pearl River New York, I got tired of having 50 people trying to play musically and headed off to the lobby for break. I tapped Father Coen on the shoulder, and we retired to a nook for a few nice sets of tunes. With my friend Russell Hopper on fiddle, myself and Fr. Charlie on concertina, and occaisionally the flute a few tunes were had in peace. We were told by the hotel staff that we were going to have to move on due to the noise, so we broke. Russell and I said goodnight to Fr. Charlie, and off to the hotel bar for a pint we went. My friends from Boston arrived around 10:30, and our “real” session began. Bouzouki, fiddle, concertina, and flute. We played till about 1 in the morning, when a gentleman approached the table and asked to if he could give a try at my concertina. I said sure, always nice to hear it being played by someone else. Brilliant playing, and then I grabbed my flute and a new face was in the session. After a few nice tunes, our next talk came to me asking where abouts he was from. He said Newcastle West in Limerick. I asked if he had learnt some of his tunes from a fellow by the last name of Herbert? I said "I can see some similarity in aprroach to Tim Collins, who credits him a as his first teacher." He replied that he was very "familiar with Con Herbert", and in fact it was he himself Con Herbert sitting here. Well, after picking my jaw up off of the floor, he said he would go fetch his instrument and be right back. He was, and brought along several members of the Allow Ceili Band ( 2007 All Ireland winners). Well, we gained the excellent box playing, and fiddle playing of two of the members of the band. About half 3 we decided it was time to call it quits for the evening. The next evening at the Porter House in Montvale New Jersey, we picked it back up, this time with the entire band including the concertina player Eimear Buckley. There was a fellow from New York named Doug also playing a very nice Edgley in the session. Again as half 3 was upon us, we decided to head back to the hotel. As we were packing up Con Herbert picked up a spare C#/ D box from Patty Furlong, and for all I know they are still playing days later.

Con played with amazing bellows control, and the slightest movement of his fingers. What a weekend!

Edited April 15, 2008 by Lawrence Reeves

[Doug Barr]

Hi Lawrence, It's Doug Barr here and I'm the Doug from the Porter House. It was a great session Sunday night and was really nice to share a few tunes with you. Next time you are up to NYC give me a shout so we can get together and play. Doug