St. Patrick's Day 2009: Two States in One Day!!

This year, St. Patrick's Day was on a Tuesday. We all took the day off work (because as we know, REAL musicians have Day Jobs!). We are hosts of the Twice-a-Month Sunday Session at deVere's Pub, and they included us in their First Annual St. Paddy's Day Block Party!! They actually closed down L Street - one of the busiest streets in Sacramento - and had an all-day St. Paddy's Party...we played from 11am to 1pm, and had a few of the Kennelly Dancers come in as well. By the time we left, it was well on its way to being a blow-out party!!

But leave we did....and headed up I-80 to Reno! We got to Ceol Irish Pub a bit past 3:30pm, and had just enough time to set up our system, get a quick sound check, and start playing! The local news was preparing to do a live broadcast, so we played during their broadcast, which included a few dancers as well as N8i on stage...and they did three or four of those live broadcasts throughout the evening!! We played till around 7pm, and just had a blast!! The crowd was great, a few people finally got brave and danced, and the green everywhere was soooo cool!! We just love Ron, Tom, Stacie and everyone at CEOL, and are hoping to head back up there in May.

Synopsis: 2009 St. Patrick's Day, no casualties, played some good music, met some great people, and then headed back to work on Wednesday, with only the slightest of hangovers! I'd say it was a great success!! Until next year.....

Sonora Celtic Faire

On the weekend of March 14-15, 2009, we were fortunate enough to take part in the 23rd Annual Sonora Celtic Faire, in beautiful historic Sonora California. Though just a week or two before there were massive rainstorms and snow flurries throughout the Sierras, the morning of March 14th was just gorgeous...it was a bit misty through the mountainous terrain of Highway 49, and was a perfect day by the time we got to Sonora.

Our first set was at noon, inside on the Guinness Stage, which seemed ultimately appropriate to us. We warmed up a bit outside, then were introduced to Forrest, who was our Sound Guy on that stage all weekend. He was great, and the sound was quite good, once we got the kinks worked out. We had a nice set, then another at 4pm, during which we all had nearly as much fun on stage as the whisky-tasting servers and customers had!! They cheered each time someone took a shot, so we had a ready-made cheering section!

Other bands that were there included Festival organizer Patrick Karnahan's group The Black Irish Band, the popular Wicked Tinkers, Tempest, and all the way from Texas, Needfire! It was great to see some of my old Texas friends again, and they were celebrating the release of their new CD, "Chasing Orion". Check 'em out if you haven't heard them, www.needfire.com - they are very exciting, high-energy, and great guys each and every one!

Another band that I was looking forward to seeing was Brother, whom I had seen years ago in Arlington, Texas at the Highland Games there...this band was originally three Australian brothers, who played Scottish Bagpipes, lived in Los Angeles, and wrote and performed really quality original rock-and-roll music! Well, Brother is now a power trio, and this time the leader singer/guitar player Angus had to stay behind, as his wife was expecting to give birth to their first child any minute! So the band was only d'Albo the drummer, and Drew, who is generally known as DidgeriDrew! These guys are such professionals that even though they didn't have their singer, the other two still showed up to do their gig at the Festival, and asked some of the other musicians to sit in with them! So along with members of Needfire and others, the guys asked me to come and play my fiddle with them! It was very exciting, and we've included a video of the event - the tune is one of my original ones, which we've named "Escher's Staircase":


NOTE: Angus now has a beautiful baby boy, and has already written a song for him. Check out Angus' Journal Entry here: http://www.brotherjournal.blogspot.com/

As my mother accompanied us to Sonora, she also got some video of Nine-8ths Irish on stage, which can be viewed at these URLs: Sally Garden & Frank's Reel, or Golden Keyboard/Maudabawn Chapel/Dinkie's.

So a great time was had by all, Patrick and Shannon and the whole crew at the Sonora Celtic Faire treated us fabulously, and we got to play some great music, listen to some great music, make some new friends, and share the whole weekend with those we love! Thanks to everyone in Sonora, we look forward to coming back next year!!