I caught a Stevie Ray video clip from Austin City Limits tonight on Google Video which got me thinking about when I saw him play live. It’s been so long now that frankly, I was starting to think I had imagined it. After all, I don’t seem to have a ticket stub from the show (I recently scanned a bunch that I had found in an old shoe box) and I was starting to think that my memory of him doing a gig in the SUNY Oneonta gym (I went to Oneonta for two years before transferring) was wrong – why would he play in a stinky college gymnasium in a tiny state school in upstate NY? I have journals from all the way back to 1980 – so I started looking for an entry to settle the matter.
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I felt old. Most of the people at the show had big black X’s on their forearms indicating they weren’t old enough to buy the beer and liquor which was still flowing pretty freely at the two bars at Terminal 5. My wrist was decked in the coveted blue band, but I only bought one round. None of us wanted to leave the rail and possibly lose our place in the front along the gate – we had gotten there early and camped out on the left side of the stage.
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We were out at the LI Irish Fest which was held at the Abbess Farm in Calverton from about 2 until 11 on Saturday, and I had been having such a good time I had forgotten to take any pictures at all. All I have are some crappy shots from a cell phone, though I think Sport had a camera with him. There were 7 tents of various sizes, all very impressive. I quipped that we should find out how much it costs to have one of these put up, so we wouldn’t need to set up any tents at all when we camp; We could just partition the huge thing into rooms! In fact, the only thing that wasn’t impressive about the fest was the turn out. I don’t know if it was a lack of advertising or what, but there were some awesome bands playing to nearly empty tents which was a shame. The lack of crowds was very welcome to me personally, however – I just hope they broke even at least. Those tents were probably not cheap.
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I was lucky enough to hook up with a bunch of friends to see the Pogues play Roseland on St. Patty’s day! I skipped out of work a bit early, caught the train in to Penn, took the C up two stops to 50th St. and hiked up the two blocks to 52nd street. Tim was already in with Sport and Cate who had gone in early for the parade and were just getting the kids and grandparents back on a train out east when I arrived, so I just hung out on line and talked to some cool people from New Brunswick about bands we liked until they could get down to meet me.

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This is a static version of a dynamic document kept on Google Docs, which is shared with several friends to view and collaborate on over time. The most recent version of the page may be found here. This is basically a list of bands I want to check out, have only begun to investigate, or think are worth sharing – I find new bands by talking to friends, listening to the local college and independent radio stations, or some of several Celtic Folk music podcasts, or internet radio stations.
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