# Music by Genre > Celtic, U.K., Nordic, Quebecois, European Folk >  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. #FreeThursday, March 13, 2014: 11:30am-1:30pm. #Celticado performs at the Framingham State University Dining Commons. #FreeSaturday, March 15, 2014: 5:30-8:30pm. #Celticado performs at a private eventSunday, March 16, 2014 2-4pm. #Celticado performs at South Hadley's Leprechaun Plunge

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## Eddie Sheehy

St. Patrick's Day?

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Beanzy

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## 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.

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## montana

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

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## 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.

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## BBarton

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

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## 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.  :Wink: 

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!

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## Eddie Sheehy

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

Methinks you will be proven wrong on this...

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## 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!

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## 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.

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## 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.

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## 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.

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## 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.

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Loretta Callahan, 

Pete Braccio, 

Randi Gormley

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## 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?  :Crying:

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## 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.

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## Steve L

Country clubs are very strange places.

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## 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.

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## Mike Romkey

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

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## 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.

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## 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.

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## 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.

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## 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.   :Wink:

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## deadend3

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

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## 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.

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## 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.

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## Pasha Alden

Hi Doug and all others 
that sure sounds like fun!   The closest thing I have coming up is a hobbies' fair.   Looking forward to that. Anyhow that's fifteen March.    Will play a song or two there.

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## Beanzy

Found this one and though it may be useful for you giging hibernophiles, 
you might want to print it and put it out front while you play  :Grin: 



Fogra / Notice

March 17th
is 
Saint Patrick's Day, Patrick's Day
Saint Paddy's Day, Paddys's Day

IT IS NOT

Saint Patty's Day, Patty's Day
Not this year. Not last year. Not ever

Happy St Patrick's Day
from
Dublin airport

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## Jack Roberts

No gig today, but I'll be playing "King of the Fairies" for my grandchildren!

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## foldedpath

I burned out on it a few years back, but my fiddler S.O. and I are helping out some friends who got a bar gig tonight. It'll be fiddle, concertina, recorder, mandolin (and a bit of flute). Possibly another fiddler if he shows up.

I'm usually reluctant to do these things because neither of us sing, and most audiences on St. Patrick's Day aren't looking for nonstop instrumentals. In this case though, we're doing the early show as basically an amplified informal session, not exactly a band performance. We've done a couple of rehearsals to figure out what tunes we have in common, and came up with a list of around 50 tunes. We'll punt from there. 

Then we're followed by a Clancy Brothers-style Irish song band. So the late night crowd will get the songs, the Happy Hour crowd gets our instrumental trad. Whether they like it or not.
 :Smile:

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## DataNick

My band, Desperado, is playing at an Irish pub/restaurant called Molly Blooms in San Clemente. We played there last year and they requested us to come back. Bluegrass with a heavy dose of fiddle tunes.

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## Randi Gormley

Two today, just finished one at the Gaelic American Club where we were on first in the bar right after the flag-raising. And as is pretty SOP for the GAC gigs, there were foul-ups in plenty, including 5 mics for 14 players (who knew everybody would show up?!?), the TV was blaring, our sound system was inextricably linked with the outside system so we got their comments and whatnots over our speaker while we were playing and we had some feedback so bad we just turned the sound off at one point, which had its advantages! Tonight, a bunch of us are playing at a local yacht club (!) -- started out as five and now looks like 8 -- if we're lucky. they have room for 4 and I'm probably going to be on sound, which'll be a first. Chaos rules!

I don't mind doing the St. Pat's gigs -- we had, dunno, 12 this year over two weeks? a private party (which turned out a surprisingly good time), a library, three schools, 3 old-folks homes (one of which had to be rescheduled from Friday because everybody there has the flu), two GAC gigs and the yacht club. About half what we did last year in terms of money and slightly down in private parties. Our group has acquired a fairly proficient uilliean piper who's very quickly getting up to speed on our set lists, a trade off from losing our best entertainer to buffalo (hope they appreciate what they now have!). It was funny, I was looking in my closet this morning for something appropriate and figured out that a good third of my clothing is green!

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DataNick

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## Eric Platt

Yes. But it will be playing Finnish music. We're making the argument for extending St. Urho's day to a second day. 

Will also be my first extended performance with the octave mandolin. Thankfully our set is only a half hour or so. We're the intermission from the main band. However, half our band is in the main band. So that means no break for them.

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## Colin Lindsay

> 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.


I can't understand how, as a young teenager with a repertoire from about three LPs, I could play from 10am to 3am without stopping, but now over forty years on with a repertoire of hundreds of tunes and songs, I can never think of anything to play after about an hour into the day's music. Funny, that... and the audience all seem to be the same people from the 60s and 70s who only come out once a year and don't realise the world has moved on somewhat.

"Can u play "Roifles of De OI R A?"
"Not any more, sure they were decommissioned..."

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Jill McAuley

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