| Islands of Song |
| After my conversation with Peter, I looked around to find Jim and Lillian gone. Vic said they had already gone to Nancy Spain's to listen to some reggae music. I thought it hilarious that here I was in Ireland on St. Patrick's weekend, seeking out reggae music! Something wrong there! LOL! But off we went. It was quite a walk to get there but we managed to find it and walked in. The music was NOT reggae. Realizing there must be another room, I asked the bartender and he said I wanted to be upstairs. As we walked into the alley to the upstairs door, I bade goodbye to Vic who had walked me to the venue. I wound my way up the rough-hewn stairs to the place I wanted to be. The long narrow room was very dark and I barely made out Jim and Lillian's figures over in the corner by the DJ. Hugh was also there as well as some of the band members who backed up Hugh, Ger and Ron this evening. It was my first time in a venue where the music of choice was reggae. I had heard this music of course at home (son Marcus is a reggae fan) and from Jim, who used to be a member of a successful reggae band, Pressure Drop,way back when. The room was filled with dancing people. It was an odd sort of dancing. As Hugh put it - "a little like country line dancing, but NOT." I laughed so hard when he said that because that's exactly what was going on! The dancers were lined up in rows, separated by an arm's length in all directions. Pretty much, they were moving in whatever way the spirit moved them. Sort of like Pentecostal dancing. There was this older guy just enjoying the heck out of himself - dancing in a '60's kind of way but no one minded. The DJ was from Antigua and had a sax player with him and an engineer. They called themselves, Rootical Sound System. He played some of the songs but more often sang along, karoake-style with what music was playing. His lyrics were pretty cool and Jim enjoyed the evening immensely. he explained to me that this was "old school" reggae, the kind he enjoyed. They had these two HUGE sets of speakers, one at each diagonal corner. It was quite intense. The DJ said it was half their usual system! I couldn't imagine the sound from FOUR sets of those speakers! You probably could have heard the music in Jamaica! I took these photos without flash. It was sooooo dark, I was afraid to blind the dancers if I used flash. |
 |
 |
| Rootical Sound System is in the house! |
| "Skankers" at Nancy Spain's Check out the beams in the ceiling. It was so cool. Everything was made of rough-hewn wood, even the tables, benches and bar. The DJ stopped at 12:30 AM and we tumbled out into the street with the rest of the partiers. |
| As Jim had a smoke, we stood in the alley. We had to flatten ourselves against the wall when a car suddenly appeared! Alan had his melodica with him and Jim tried it out. Then, in talking about Jim's performance the next night, the generation gap reared itself. Jim explained to Alan that he should play a Paul Simon riff in one of the songs he was going to do. Alan says, "Who is Paul Simon?" I had a good laugh and felt very old. I was 12 when I heard my first Paul Simon song. Grabbed a cab back to the hotel and peeked into the lounge to see who was there. Colleen and Hugh were there so we hung out and talked for a while. Lillian introduced me to Port and Brandy. She said it'd fit me well because it'd take all night to finish it. I usually nurse a drink a good long time so it seemed like a good choice. She was right. It was good in tiny sips. There was a wedding party there at the lounge - 6 kilted guys were a nice sight and their ladies were a bit tipsy. One was throwing confetti and flower petals up in the air and trying to catch them on her bosom. The women had these little dominatrix whips that they were using on whatever man happened by. After a while, Darrell, Clare, Ger and Ron walked in, frozen. They had ended up at the pub across the street from Nancy Spain's and had not been able to get a cab back. It was a long cold walk back to the hotel! I told Ger how much I had enjoyed his set last evening and we got into a conversation about kids. He's got three kids and he and Darrell and I spoke about how kids learn to read and about different approaches in schools for learning. I took out Flat Stanley and had Ger's photo taken with him after I explained who he was. He also took my photo with Stanley so he'd have it on his digital. LOL! It was 4 AM by the time I trundled upstairs. The gang from Newfoundland stayed up way longer than that though! I was not meant to keep musician's hours. |
 |
| Ger with Flat Stanley in Cork. Partying after hours at the hotel |
| Saturday Not wanting the breakfast in the hotel restaurant, we walked to LA Bagel and got ourselves breakfast sandwiches about 10 AM. We took them back to the hotel and enjoyed the glimpses of the stiltwalking clowns and Peter photographing them outside the hotel. Later, Jim had to go to rehearsal for his show tonight and we dropped him off at the Triskel and went shopping at the Tourist store. We had a late lunch at Ky's Kafe and Bistro on Patrick Street and went back to the hotel with Jim and Lillian for a bit. I arranged for a taxi on Sunday morning at 5:30 AM. It was the only time we could leave from Cork and be back at a reasonable hour in New York for Heather to pick us up. It's a two hour drive home from New York's JFK Airport. We'd have a three hour layover in London, but that might be just enough should anything happen to delay us here. We figured we'd have a little time to get breakfast in London at least. I spent some quality time with Jim and Lillian and then it was off to the Triskel for Jim's soundcheck. The Newfoundlanders were hanging outside at the sidewalk tables and Vic and I mulled around a bit waiting for them to open the doors after soundcheck. Wrote out some postcards that were not going to be mailed in Cork. I chatted a bit with Peter again and Niall told me he was coming to New York City in June to play at the Living Room. Guess we'll be taking a trip to NYC in June! Jim told me not to make any plans after the show because he'd be sitting in with the band at the Tiki doing his reggae thing. Cool! I was up for it! |
 |
| Saturday Night at the Triskel Islands of Song concludes |
 |
 |