I find the unpredictability of our sessions a little stressful, but our November session turned out to be great fun. For me personally, the presence of another two fiddlers made my day. The pub was really busy too.
Our band, ThessHooley, made its debut on 26th November. Of course, we had our entourage and camp followers, but the atmosphere inside the bar was terrific. During the sessions we sometimes hear raucous cheering, only to find out it’s for a goal that has been scored! However, the cheers on Sunday 26th were for us.
Someone asked if we had a Facebook page. Though I hate the site with a passion, I’m afraid to say that one of our guitarists, Robert, created one immediately after the gig: https://www.facebook.com/thesshooley
With an even deeper sense of shame, I have to admit that I’ve looked at it. It’s not bad. Like ourselves, it is straight to the point and no nonsense.
I’m really pleased with the slight modifications we’ve made to the playlist. Some songs, no matter how simple, can take a while to get right. In Riyadh it took us ages to get the Galway Girl right (Steve Earle’s, not Ed Sheeran’s). We learnt the melody straight away, but the overall co-ordination took a while. Here in Greece, it took us months to get Rainy Night in Soho packaged to our satisfaction. The riffs between the lines were the problem. We even made one more slight change during our last practice before the gig. We delivered it well on Sunday. It will now become our homage to Shane McGowan, who died on 30th November. I think and hope Shane would be proud of our efforts.
Here is the man himself: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PSyL-TrD_2g The orchestration is beautiful.
And here it is with lyrics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yp9opU34bmo
And this is the Late Late Show’s tribute: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bi2JEdKwzAI