So I actually played a St. Patrick's Day gig

And no, it wasn't a Crash Pad show. Though I do need to get that back up and running, since in a week the band will be 20 years old, and might as well get some PR for our anniversary year.

What happened was I went to see my friend Lisa in her Irish music band last Sunday, so I would have something to write up for my magazine column. She plays lap steel in the experimental/performance art band (Bill Perry Orchestra) I played guitar in, but I had never seen/heard her play harp.

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As you can possibly guess from the gray hair, Lisa is retired, that's her husband John on guitar and vocals. The younger woman on the left is Jennifer, she also plays penny whistle and bodhran, and sings. They were really good.

After their set they came and sat with us for awhile, as I had not seen Lisa since I had a bunch of operations done late last year, and BPO wasn't doing anything since its namesake and leader recently got married. I casually mentioned that if they ever needed a mandolin player, I'd be happy to jam or sit in.

They invited me to come round their practice Tuesday night. I played a few songs on mandolin, but they wanted to hear what John's banjitar sounded like, so mostly I played that.

Then came a big surprise. They asked if I wanted to play with them at their gig on Thursday. It was at a large (100+ acres) retirement community here called The Village (which always makes me think of the weird '60's British show "The Prisoner," haha).

On Thursday, one of my online cancer buds, who had asked if she could crochet me a scarf, instead sent me two homemade ones, a bunch of store bought scarves and neckerchiefs, a "flip off cancer" iron -on, and even a bag of lemonheads. So rather than overdo the "wearin' o' the green," I decided to wear my black Swaggerin' Growlers (a Boston Celt-rock band that Crash Pad has gigged with a couple times) t-shirt and a camo neckerchief that I just received. (The neckerchief/scarves are because I've had a lot of work done on my neck and it's pretty gnarly right now.) Here's me with the swag I received by chance in the mail.

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As it so happened everybody else at the gig went with black and just a splash of green too, so we ended up looking fairly well coordinated, although my jeans, boots, and studded belt were a shade more casual than the others.

At the gig, I was holding on fer dear life and wingin' it like nobody's business. I shared the flute player's music, rather than the harper's I had shared at practice, so I ended up just watching the guitarist's left hand. A LOT. As noted, I was playing on a single rehearsal, so most of these songs I had only played once, ever.

Then, John called a couple songs not planned for the set, that I had never played before ever.

And just to make things even more interesting, at practice I had played a few songs on mandolin and the rest on John's banjitar (both seen at my feet in the below pic). But John's banjitar had some really heavy strings and a little higher action than what I, as predominately an electric player, was really comfortable with. I didn't think I was fretting very cleanly at practice, so I brought my banjo instead, with the thought that if the lighter strings didn't offset the different neck scale, I still had the option of playing mandolin or going back to banjitar and toughing it out. As it happened, I played the whole set on the longneck without serious incident.

Or, as I frequently put it, "Hey, nobody died. "

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Anyhow, it was actually great fun for a gig where I was faking it most of the time. And, over my objection, they even cut me in on the dosh, which was totally not necessary but a nice plus. The old folks in the audience seemed to really enjoy it, and several came up afterwards to say so.

Erin go bragh!
 
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