Got any St Paddy's Day Gigs Coming Up?

[Adam Sweet]

Here's mine:

• Saturday, March 8, 2014 10am-1pm. #Celticado performs at the Wadsworth Antheneum Museum of Art in Hartford, CT. #Free
• Thursday, March 13, 2014: 11:30am-1:30pm. #Celticado performs at the Framingham State University Dining Commons. #Free
• Saturday, March 15, 2014: 5:30-8:30pm. #Celticado performs at a private event
• Sunday, March 16, 2014 2-4pm. #Celticado performs at South Hadley's Leprechaun Plunge

[Eddie Sheehy]

St. Patrick's Day?

[Randi Gormley]

We're finalizing stuff right now. There's a gig on March 1 (I think) that's a fund-raiser but we'll get the full schedule on Monday. Have a couple of schools and senior centers scattered among the paying gigs.

[montana]

Other than NewYears Eve SPD is got to be the worst gig.

[Mike Anderson]

Other than NewYears Eve SPD is got to be the worst gig.

Ha, it can be! Got hit in the teeth with my mic when a drunk fell on the stand one year. Split my lip, kept on playing though of course, since the show must go on...

Then another year a big crowd of Irish expats showed up and I had the most amazing bodhran "duel" with one of them. It's a crapshoot I guess.

[BBarton]

Yes -- too many! So far, 5 in 3 days, but it's been busier before. Always good fun though.

[foldedpath]

Other than NewYears Eve SPD is got to be the worst gig.

It can be, but only if you lack the willpower to say "No" when you know in advance it will be awful.

Anyway, we were booked for a very well-paying gig on an evening cruise. I think it was for Microsoft employees (I didn't handle the booking). However, they cancelled on us recently, probably because the idiots booked it on the actual day of the 17th, not realizing it was a Monday. Nobody wants to go out and party on a Monday night!

[Eddie Sheehy]

"Nobody wants to go out and party on a Monday night!"

Methinks you will be proven wrong on this...

[foldedpath]

Eddie, you're right. I think in this specific case, they couldn't sell enough expensive tickets for the event on a Monday. Drinking and partying will no doubt occur regardless!

[Bren]

We did one in Torrevieja in Spain a few years ago. They flew us out there and put us up for two nights.

It was a British expat bar and we had to follow a Robson and Jerome tribute act (with their backing tapes and all).

As soon as we started playing, several people left. "Don't worry, they always leave at that time" said the doorman. What, 11pm Friday night, St Patrick's day, in Spain? Yeah, living the dream!

We struggled through and were so depressed we caught a cab up the coast to an Irish bar we knew of and had a rip roaring session til 3am when we decamped to a karaoke bar. The accordion player had fallen asleep in the taxi and was surprised to wake up and find he was onstage singing "Tie a Yellow Ribbon". I went to the toilet and heard frantic grunting from the cubicle, then two neat looking gents emerged, adjusting their clothing. We left about 6am.

The next day we met the next "artiste" coming in. It was Jimmy Cricket, the one time popular Irish comedian.

"How did it go last night lads?" he said.

"Disaster" we said.

"Ah well" he said, "You win some, you lose some".

That you do.

[whistler]

There aren't that many St. Patrick's Day gigs in Mid Wales. There aren't that many St. David's Day gigs either, funnily enough.

[Jon Hall]

Our band, Camino Real, will play a couple of sets of Irish music at the Liberty Bell Pub in Nacogdoches TX on Saturday, March 15th. Our performance will be preceded by a 2 hr. jam of local musicians.

[Steve L]

St. Patrick's Day...the one day of the year when people who spend 364 days a year ignoring Irish music come out and tell musicians how to play it.

[Mike Anderson]

St. Patrick's Day...the one day of the year when people who spend 364 days a year ignoring Irish music come out and tell musicians how to play it.

Ha, ain't it the truth!

One year we were up at Whistler at a well-known "Irish" pub, and one guy kept yelling "Son of a Preacher Man!" over and over and over, despite our painfully polite attempts to get him to understand that:

1) we didn't know the song, and

2) we were hired to play music appropriate to the venue and occasion.

But really, what can you expect in a part of the world where one of the best-known "Irish" pubs advertises non-stop giant-screen UFC broadcasts?

[Randi Gormley]

So our gig list includes 16 venues with a couple more pending, looks like five schools, a VA hospital, two nursing homes, two house parties, a country club gig, a florist (!) and a library along with stuff like playing for our host (the Fairfield Gaelic American Club) and a couple of similar venues. Oh, and a coffee house gig for a handful of us as back to a couple professionals sort of on the side. The country club has been a problem since we got it, but it does attract our better players so the craic is good even if the venue and the hosts are less-than-optimal.

[Steve L]

Country clubs are very strange places.

[Randi Gormley]

Yeah, the history there isn't particularly good. The first year we did it, they turned one of our musicians away at the door because she had on jeans. Nice, dark, high-end and perfectly pressed jeans along with a suit jacket and jewelry. They refused to allow one of our members (who just turned 80 this year, so he was probably 78 or 79 at the time) to buy a beer at the bar because they don't "serve the help." They didn't even provide water bottles or food and there were, maybe, 4 tables of people. I passed last year, thinking they only invited us back from embarrassment because of the issue over Geri's jeans. I was told they put the group in the far back of the ballroom no where near the paying customers, offered them food -- in the basement and it was the leavings of the staff dinner, cold on the table -- and that the last paying customer left a good 40 minutes before the gig was up and they still played on. Staff came out to hear, though. I was flabbergasted when they invited us back this year. And we're charging them $750, too.

[Mike Romkey]

Playing at Kavanaugh's after America's biggest bi-state St. Patrick's parade. And before that. And after that.

[Pete Braccio]

Only two gigs for me this year. I'm looking forward to not running around like a maniac trying to do the old seven gigs in two days routine.

[Matt DeBlass]

I thought I was going to have a quiet year, but I just booked a few last-minute shows. Mine are:

Friday 3-14: as Matt DeBlass (solo) at Mannion's Pub, Somerville, NJ 6-8 pm
Saturday 3-15 Solo at the Bound Brook, NJ, Moose Lodge 4-6pm and with my trio Baroque & Hungry at Mannion's Pub 7-11pm
Sunday 3-16 Matt DeBlass at the Sidewalk Cafe, Brooklyn, NY 9-10pm
Monday 3-17 Baroque & Hungry at Mannion's Pub 5-midnight

I go into the Studio with one of the other bands I work with earlier in the week too. Funny how it works, barely anything all through January and February and then everything all at once in March.

[deadend3]

Yes, we also have a new CD coming out which will be available starting next week, just in time for St. Patrick's Day.

[Loretta Callahan]

Two nights a year I tend to stay home because of amateur drinkers: St. Paddy's and New Year's Eve. I prefer some of the before and after St. Paddy's events in March.

[deadend3]

Here's the schedule I meant to include in my original post.

[Randi Gormley]

Well, it finally happened. Someone at the VA Hospital gig (the entertainment coordinator) asked for Green Alligators. None of us knew it, but our box player knew the chorus so played that. And it seemed sufficient.

We also did a coffee house side gig where somone from the audience asked for Danny Boy (we normally don't mind playing this since we have a singer who will do it) but the featured fiddle player just launched into the most maudlin, shmaltzy technique he knew and encouraged everybody to get really into it, which we did. Turning lemons into lemonade. All part of the fun.

[DougC]

No more of the crazy stuff for me. I leave it for the young bucks who want the party. I do miss the Craic and special times.

That said, I just got an email from Paddy O'Brien who must be 20 years my senior, and he is playing all over the place. So, 'to each his own' I guess. I'll be there in spirit for all of you however; Paddy included. Play well.