St. Patrick has been and gone.
We had a practice on Thursday, 14th. We were scheduled to do a session in the Dubliner on 16th and a gig on the great day for an Irish party, March 17th. Very late in the day, the owner of another bar approached Vasili, one of our guitarists, about the possibility of doing a gig on Sat, 15th. Negotiations came unstuck when Vasilis mentioned ένσημα, National Insurance stamps. The owner he said he would take the risk – yeah right – and pay was dependent on the number of punters. It was both iffy in terms of pay and illegal, so we declined. The bar owner became very unpleasant. He said we’d only get about €5 each if he had to pay ένσημα, and, and… Vasilis doesn’t think he will be welcome as a customer there anymore!
The session went well. Raphael, a post-grad student from ΠΑΜΑΚ (University of Macedonia) joined us with his six-string bouzouki. He said he knew three Irish songs, Scarborough Fair, The Foggy Dew and Come Out Ye Black and Tans. We had to tell him the first one was English; I sang the middle one; and we thought we should leave the last one alone. We normally sit in a corner of the bar, but as the stage was still out, we sat on and around it to free up tables for paying customers.
Two pics from the session, 16 March 2025:
On THE DAY itself, the pub was under siege. We learned that there would be a singer performing after us. Normally we play around 24 numbers, but I had created a playlist with thirty-one as I was expecting us to finish later. With the self-imposed pressure, we set about getting through the material. It turned out to be very successful performance. We did not make many mistakes and we kept up a brisk pace throughout.
Here is our version of Connaughtman’s Rambles, Kesh, Swaggering Jig, Toss the Feathers #2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0UEbKWD96Ik
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