So, how many of us had a gig on the weekend associated with St Patrick's Day, playing either your normal music or doing something more Irish for the occasion? Did you play acoustic or electric? We played three gigs - two on Saturday and one on Sunday. By the end of Sunday we were wiped, especially since we had to provide sound for Saturday night and Sunday's gigs. Saturday afternoon's was the easiest, since it was a multi-band festival so we just showed up with instruments (plus my pedal board and small amp) - someone else was running sound. We played an energetic selection of our usual blend of Irish/Celtic stuff, but I got to let my rock'n'roll side out for a big stroll, adding dirt to the pub songs that I might normally play on an acoustic at our usual haunts. Everything was outside (under some modicum of cover), and thankfully the weather held up! For those local to central Florida, we played the Crooked Can Celtic Fest Saturday afternoon (effectively opening up for the headliner), then played the Sanford St Paddy's Day Street Festival at Wops Hops Brewing, and then on Sunday we played the Yalaha Bootlegging Company (they make "commercial moonshine") - their event was called "ShineFest". @bodia , thanks for letting me acquire your P245SH - it rocked over the weekend! You might not have bonded with it, but I think I have now! I used it anytime I wasn't on Mandolin, basically, so about half of my playing time. We are already booked to return next year for St Pat's at one of the locales (the St night gig at Wops Hops), and will return to Yalaha for next year's ShineFest. And of course, we'll play these spots throughout the year as "normal" gigs. Who else rocked the weekend?!
I gigged - full electric band. Good times! I couldn't find anything green to wear, so I broke out an old Charvel in surf green I hadn't gigged with in almost 10 years. Did a few holiday favorites (Dropkick Murphys among others), got a real good response.
Cool! We all had on green shirts - a mix of band logo shirts and other stuff. Other guitarist wore his Dr Seuss Cat-In-The-Hat Green Irish hat - he's tall as it is, so that just made him look towering... My wife (percussionist and singer) and I brought big green leprechaun type hats to wear, but it was too darned hot for us to put them on, since they are mostly plastic and therefore don't breathe. Plus I find bigger hats make it hard to swap instruments trying to get the strap over my head. And I swap typically every second or third song. We did our take on a bunch of traditional Irish pub songs like: Whiskey In the Jar (we start out sounding all trad a la The Dubliner's, then kick in the Thin Lizzy/Metallica riff nice and heavy, then drop back to a blend for the verse, kick it up for the chorus, really crank it for the Thin Lizzy riff, drop back again for next verse) Bonny Swans (dirty chugga chugga with occasional heavy chord ringing out) Star of The County Down (again, start out sounding very trad, "pathetically slow" and soft with acoustic guitar and whistle, then I rip a buzz down the neck on the electric and play semi-muted chugga/djent chords at a fast tempo throughout, with a finale of very fast heavy chords) I could go on... Anyway, very different from our monthly gig at a place where we do the exact same songs, but much more traditional, no elec guitar, just acoustic, mando, occasional banjo, and the other trad instruments like whistle, fiddle, bodhran. Was a nice treat to let my metal-head side out for a while... For gigs at places other than that one monthly All Irish All the Time, we mix it up, with trad stuff, softer renditions of pub songs, and rock'n;roll stuff. Plus a lot more of our originals - we didn't do many of those over the weekend, recognizing that keeping people bopping with stuff they recognize was the main idea. We can be artistes the rest of the year pushing our product...
It is an awesome instrument, and the Trampas Green looks great for our Irish/Celtic music theme. One other thing: I am sure folks around here have played to larger crowds, but it was quite the ego boost to play to a street-full of a couple thousand people (maybe more) in one city for the afternoon, then pick up and do it again to another street-full of at least a thousand people (maybe more) in another city that evening. We usually play in pubs or cafes where they might be able to fit 80 people in the room, and usually the "audience" is no more than 30 or 40 people. When we play festivals the crowd can number in the hundreds, but rarely approach a thousand.
I've been bandless since November. No gigs for me. I was actually sick over SP day weekend. Wife went out with some friends and came home feeling aggressive, so I did perform just no band!
