March is always a good month. Plenty of practice and a couple of gigs, Sadly, our little adventure in Grevena didn’t happen. I don’t know if we asked for too much money or if the festival suffered from a lack of sponsorship. Or maybe accommodation was an issue. A brief look at www.booking.com suggests there are only three hotels in the town itself.
As I said in 24/001 IMinNG, I wasn’t going to jinx the March session with new music. It turned out to be the right decision. This was our playlist:
| Set | Tune Names | Type |
| 1 | Humours of Glendart/Saddle the Pony | Jigs |
| 2 | Far from Home/Concertina | Reels |
| 3 | Chief O’Neill’s Favourite/Friendly Visit | Hornpipes |
| 4 | Silver Spear/Merry Blacksmith | Reels |
| 5 | Britches full of Stitches/Mairi’s Wedding | Polkas/Songs |
| 6 | Dan O’Keefe’s/Mary Willie’s/Priest | Slides (12/8) |
| 7 | Butterfly/Foxhunters/Boyne Hunt | Slip Jig/Reel |
| 8 | Out on the Ocean/Humours Trim | Jigs |
| 9 | Spootiskerry/Willafjord | Reels |
| 10 | Soldier’s Joy/Flowers of Edinburgh/Staten Island | Hornpipes |
| 11 | Come by the Hills/Na Ceannabhan Bhana | Song/Slip Jig |
| 12 | Dan Sullivan’s Shamrock Band/Maggie in the Woods | Polkas |
| 13 | Whiskey before Breakfast/Turkey in the Straw | Reels |
| 14 | Frost is All Over/Lilting Banshee/Tripping it Upstairs | Song/Jigs |
| 15 | Happy One-step | Cajun |
| 16 | Trumpet Hornpipe/Harvest Home | Hornpipes |
| 17 | Kesh/Blackthorn Stick/Father O’Flynn/Irish Washerwoman | Jigs |
| 18 | Father Kelly’s/Reconciliation | Reels |
| 19 | Dennis Murphy’s/John Ryan’s | Polkas |
| 20 | Cooley’s/Doherty’s/Drowsy Maggie | Reels |
The pub was really busy too. Not for us but for the Liverpool v Man City match. Here are a few clips from the session. They capture the liveliness of the bar.
Humours of Trim: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_sPgfudNJnw&pp=ygUtZHVibGluZXIgZGFuY2luZyBUaGVzc2Fsb25pa2kgMTB0aCBNYXJjaCAyMDI0
Spootiskerry/Willafjord: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s37Uek8db1k
Dancing: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/pEfhTJzhiFg
Out on the Ocean: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/9Ja2SRK62to
A week later, on St. Patrick’s Day, Sunday, March 17th, our band, ThessHooley, was up against football again. This time it was a cup tie between Man Utd and Liverpool. As it was a gig, we had the advantage of being plugged so we could compete with the fans! The atmosphere inside the bar was electric. Two of us in the band are Liverpool supporters so we had one eye on the TV screens. On the other hand, the fans watching the game seemed to enjoy the music almost as much as the football.
Our performance wasn’t flawless, but we got our very first encore! I think it would also have been a standing ovation but for the fact that most people were already on their feet. A final word on the music. Generally, reels are more popular with players and audiences than jigs and other rhythms, but on Sunday the jigs in particular seemed to go down particularly well.
Edward Wilcox put the following together, The images are from 17th March but the music is taken from a CD some of us recorded years ago.
ThessHooley @ The Dubliner, Thessaloniki (Saint Patrick’s Day 2024) (youtube.com)
More to come soon.