Sometimes in the comfort of suburban life, I forget that we live with a big city near our doorstep, and sometimes that's the place to go play, or in this case, listen. Steve, Arron, and I went to the
Beachland Ballroom to hear some Celtic flavored music last night. We arrived early, got good seats, and were amused at the commercials for other shops in the area that ran on the club's sound system. It gave me a feeling of being a part of the city life like a Charles De Lint character in Newford, out for an evening's carouse. We were excited to see Gráda and were vastly pleased at the opening band,
Pitch the Peat, a locally based group with some Irish imports in the personnel. The guitar player had a fascinating style: he was often playing with a flat pick while finger picking with his last two fingers. They were wondrous good, high energy and obviously had a good following in the audience, as the place filled to standing room. The quantity of quality band originals was impressive, and held it's own as part of a great evening of music winding up for Gráda's powerhouse presentation.
Gráda - oh, they were good. Every one of 'em, including their Irish/Italian substitute (#2) fiddler who doubled on trumpet. Yah really, a trumpet. Alan's fluting was everything you could hope for.
There was enough light from the neon "BAR" sign that I tried some sketching: if you can't dance, it's amazing how enjoyable it is to be penciling in the dark background to a wild set of jigs. The guitarist was a dervish, dancing and waggling his guitar around while bending notes in a lush way. His glasses kept sliding down his nose; sometimes the fiddler would shove them back up, and sometimes he'd take 'em off.
I watched the bodhran player's hand turn a blur on the tuneable bodhran that reminded me of Margaret's, though a bit deeper. She sang beautifully, high energy. They too had a great number of traditional sounding songs they'd written. It was three hours of grand live music. I felt sorry for them, driving off to Nashville overnight. I'd not want to be on the road after putting out that kind of energy for a couple hours. Good thing they're a batch of young lads and lass!
There was enough light from the neon "BAR" sign that I tried some sketching: if you can't dance, it's amazing how enjoyable it is to be penciling in the dark background to a wild set of jigs. The guitarist was a dervish, dancing and waggling his guitar around while bending notes in a lush way. His glasses kept sliding down his nose; sometimes the fiddler would shove them back up, and sometimes he'd take 'em off. 
I watched the bodhran player's hand turn a blur on the tuneable bodhran that reminded me of Margaret's, though a bit deeper. She sang beautifully, high energy. They too had a great number of traditional sounding songs they'd written. It was three hours of grand live music. I felt sorry for them, driving off to Nashville overnight. I'd not want to be on the road after putting out that kind of energy for a couple hours. Good thing they're a batch of young lads and lass!
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