24th October. A great afternoon in the Dubliner yesterday where Tir Fada played their first gig in quite a while. They were on form, the audience appreciative, the pub full, and I overdid it with draught Lagunitas, a Californian IPA. I’m suffering today.
Practice continues to be a problem for the same reasons expressed in earlier posts. We had to cancel last week’s practice because the proprietor was expecting a crowd to watch Liverpool v West Ham. This Wednesday there will also be Champions League football. Breaking News!! I have just received a text saying the bar is available. Now let’s see how many turn up.
‘Breakthrough’ is too strong a word, but I am making slow progress. Someone on www.thesession.org asked a question about a session in Bucharest. The discussion can be found here: https://thesession.org/discussions/47551
I now have a contact in Romania’s capital. Though there is a session there, it isn’t established on a regular basis. Anyway, the thing is I now have some contacts in Zagreb, Turkey and Bucharest, so the next step is to find contacts in Belgrade and Sofia! My hope is to organise in late 2023 or early 2024 a pan-Balkan Irish session in Thessaloniki. It will probably never happen, but it will keep me busy.
Finally, one of the tunes Tir Fada played yesterday was a jig, The Cliffs of Moher. I have known it for a while, but it occurred to me as I was listening that I had never heard it played in public. Here it is being played on the very same cliffs: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sw14TkSBy8I I would have preferred it if she had worn clothes appropriate for the weather and cut out the dancing – she is no Natalie MacMaster.