This weekend1 has been full of cultural activities for me!
As you may recall, a couple weeks ago at the BAFFLE poetry festival I met a young man named Neil McCarthy. Neil had invited us to an event he hosts every other Thursday called "the Voice and the Verse," a little show that pairs a local poet and a local musician to perform together. This past Thursday, Beth, Jen, and I decided to check it out, so we went on up to The Crane.
The show was excellent! First, a guitar player named Jamie did a few songs to open. His music reminded me a bit of Dave Matthews, though less pop-y. I recognized him from Shop Street-- he's one of the regular buskers. He has always amused me, being a redhaired Irish guy with a high tenor voice who sings Johnny Cash songs in the street. His original stuff was very good, though.
After him, the main act came one: a performance poet named Stephen Murray. Oddly, I have actually met him before! When I was in Galway during my study abroad, I got to see a great deal of the (April 2005) Cuírt Poetry Festival, but my favorite event by far was the slam poetry competition. I had been the only one interested out of my class, so I had gone alone to the pub where it was held and ended up talking to one of the poets for half an hour, before and after the readings. His poem had been my favorite, and he won that competition. That poet was Stephen Murray, who is also a good friend of Neil McCarthy's. What a strangely small world! Anyway, Stephen recited some fantastic poetry, accompanied by a guy with a guitar who did backup rhythms for his poems. Stephen's poetry is very good, but he also performs it impeccably, which is of equal importance with slam or performance poetry.
When Stephen was through reading, the musician who had been accompanying him took the stage for himself. All I can say about him: wow.
Dan Donnelly is his name; he calls his band "Sonovagun," though it's pretty much just him with a recording box to loop sounds back and accompany himself. I highly recommend giving some of his music a listen, because it's very good. Very pleasant indie-folky guitar pop. He performed for the rest of the night, playing a mix of his own stuff and some fun covers.
After the show, Beth and I talked to Neil for a while, and he informed us of a small informal jam going on the next day, at a pub called The Nauchton. Dan Donnelly would be playing there, and Beth and I enjoyed his music so much that we decided to check it out. So the next night, we went out and brought Meg with us.
This show was a much more typical bar show-- it was packed, standing room only all night, and noisy. People were talking the whole time and the music was just background noise. Still, we secured places near the front of the crowd and watched the whole 2+ hour set. Afterward, Dan came and shook our hands, recognizing Beth and I from the night before. He had CDs for sale, and I decided to buy one. The problem was, I had a hard time deciding which one I wanted. He has two full-length albums for €10 apiece, and a single for €5. Both the albums had songs I really liked-- "Spare Change" on one and "Diamonds In The Road" on the other. I was debating buying both, and he saw this uncertainty, because he said "Tell you what. For €20 I'll give you both albums, the single, and a DVD of two concerts!" Done! So now I have the whole Dan Donnelly collection. It's really good stuff.
It was still fairly early, not even 11pm, by the time Dan got packed up. Meg, Beth, and I weren't sure if we wanted to stick around, go somewhere else, or go home, when Neil came up and invited us to go to another pub with him, Dan, Jamie (the other musician from the night before) and their girlfriends, to see some more live music. We were surprised and a bit flattered, so we went along to another pub. This place was a lot quieter and the music was very low-key, so we just sat around and chatted for a bit until around midnight, when Beth, Meg, and I got too tired and went home. The only bit of excitement here was when a very drunk man started harassing Beth. He was hitting on her in a very vulgar way, and got hostile when she rebuffed him. Dan Donnelly jumped up and confronted him, and looked ready to fight him until he backed off. A Northern Irish man ready to start a bar fight to protect someone he just met? I guess stereotypes exist for a reason. ^_~
Overall, an exciting and enjoyable weekend. It was very nice to get see something a little different than crappy dance music or kitschy tourist bars. I like that Neil has sort of befriended us-- I feel like he can introduce me to a lot of the indie/art scene in this town. I knew it existed, I just hadn't found it... but Thursday, watching slam poetry among lip-pierced intellectuals, I finally felt like I'd discovered my crowd.
1: And by "weekend" I mean "Thursday and Friday." I spent Saturday and today doing homework.
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