My second St Patrick's day since I've been playing Irish music.
Unfortunately this one fell on a week day, so there weren't the crowds there were last year and Lynette couldn't come with me. The former had its advantages, the latter wasn't so good. I don't have much time to be with her while we're playing, but it's nice to have here there and I know she likes the music.
As with last year we started out at my "home pub", The Bog, Manukau at 0900. That was pretty sparsely populated, only a few diehards coming in for the enormous breakfast they were serving. Playing were Warren, Lew and Helen (Paddy Mack), John and Sue and Robbie and Maggie. I think we were all pretty much waking up, nothing too startling anywhere and the Paddy Mackers were practising a few pieces for the next gig at the Irish Society. Lots of fun and the breakfast, that I used as a lunch was good. Eggs, bacon, baked beans, sausage, black pudding, mushrooms and toast. Not remotely Zone. I did resist the toast, except for a couple of chunks I used to mop up the baked bean sauce.
The band invited me to come with them to the Irish Society gig, which was a pleasant surprise, I thought that as it was a paid performance it would be just them. I only got slightly lost going there and helped carry mike stands and instruments up to the venue, an un-air-conditioned rugby clubroom. The day was hot by then and I was getting a bit sweaty, so the sacrificial T-shirt I wore under my green shirt was ditched having done its job. I'd never played at a paid performance before and it was really interesting, the different feeling from a Session. You're up in front of everyone and they're all looking at you. You can't just wander off to the loo when you need to or mess up your playing. Very educational. They served handles of Light Ice there and one of those went some way to combating the heat.
Then help with packing everything into the car and off to the next gig at The Bog, Parnell. I made a slight gaff and grabbed a fiddle case belonging to a member of the next band to play there. When it became apparent that Helen had hers I dashed back and returned it to its owner. Auckland traffic was Auckland traffic by that stage of the day, always fun. Not.
They hadn't miked us into the Pub's sound system, which was a shame. We were in the little stage area at the back of the pub and the noise from the crowd was pretty phenomenal. As we played, all hammering away as loudly as possible, people started noticing and they began listening. That grew and spread about half-way toward the door and we had people singing along and requesting songs. Lots of fun. If they'd piped us out the street we could have had even more people listening to us and probably attracted more people into the place.
Right at the end as we were packing up a scottish couple were taking photos and got me to pose for one. I gave them my email address and they sent it later that night.
That's what you see below, me as the posterboy for Guinness or "looking like a giant Leprechaun" as one of my workmates said when I circulated it there.
I went with Lew, Warren, Helen and Tom to a restaurant across the road from the pub. I downed most of a jug of pineapple juice. Seriously dehydrated. Oh, on the "stage" at the pub I was perched on a stool in the corner and the whole time, wedged in by players and instruments and I couldn't reach the water jug and glasses. The Guinness helped, but I didn't want to use that as a re-hydrator, I was having enough trouble staying on time from tiredness.
So that was "what I did on St. Patrick's day".
Lots of fun, very hot and very tiring.
Unfortunately this one fell on a week day, so there weren't the crowds there were last year and Lynette couldn't come with me. The former had its advantages, the latter wasn't so good. I don't have much time to be with her while we're playing, but it's nice to have here there and I know she likes the music.
As with last year we started out at my "home pub", The Bog, Manukau at 0900. That was pretty sparsely populated, only a few diehards coming in for the enormous breakfast they were serving. Playing were Warren, Lew and Helen (Paddy Mack), John and Sue and Robbie and Maggie. I think we were all pretty much waking up, nothing too startling anywhere and the Paddy Mackers were practising a few pieces for the next gig at the Irish Society. Lots of fun and the breakfast, that I used as a lunch was good. Eggs, bacon, baked beans, sausage, black pudding, mushrooms and toast. Not remotely Zone. I did resist the toast, except for a couple of chunks I used to mop up the baked bean sauce.
The band invited me to come with them to the Irish Society gig, which was a pleasant surprise, I thought that as it was a paid performance it would be just them. I only got slightly lost going there and helped carry mike stands and instruments up to the venue, an un-air-conditioned rugby clubroom. The day was hot by then and I was getting a bit sweaty, so the sacrificial T-shirt I wore under my green shirt was ditched having done its job. I'd never played at a paid performance before and it was really interesting, the different feeling from a Session. You're up in front of everyone and they're all looking at you. You can't just wander off to the loo when you need to or mess up your playing. Very educational. They served handles of Light Ice there and one of those went some way to combating the heat.
Then help with packing everything into the car and off to the next gig at The Bog, Parnell. I made a slight gaff and grabbed a fiddle case belonging to a member of the next band to play there. When it became apparent that Helen had hers I dashed back and returned it to its owner. Auckland traffic was Auckland traffic by that stage of the day, always fun. Not.
They hadn't miked us into the Pub's sound system, which was a shame. We were in the little stage area at the back of the pub and the noise from the crowd was pretty phenomenal. As we played, all hammering away as loudly as possible, people started noticing and they began listening. That grew and spread about half-way toward the door and we had people singing along and requesting songs. Lots of fun. If they'd piped us out the street we could have had even more people listening to us and probably attracted more people into the place.
Right at the end as we were packing up a scottish couple were taking photos and got me to pose for one. I gave them my email address and they sent it later that night.
That's what you see below, me as the posterboy for Guinness or "looking like a giant Leprechaun" as one of my workmates said when I circulated it there.
I went with Lew, Warren, Helen and Tom to a restaurant across the road from the pub. I downed most of a jug of pineapple juice. Seriously dehydrated. Oh, on the "stage" at the pub I was perched on a stool in the corner and the whole time, wedged in by players and instruments and I couldn't reach the water jug and glasses. The Guinness helped, but I didn't want to use that as a re-hydrator, I was having enough trouble staying on time from tiredness.
So that was "what I did on St. Patrick's day".
Lots of fun, very hot and very tiring.
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