The jig is up

I have grown to love traditional Irish music, with its jigs, reels and waltzes—precisely what Irish super group Patrick Street puts forth in its seasoned, persuasive playing. I also love how pleasant an Irish tune can be. This coming from someone who used to hate Irish music because of its seemingly (to the uninitiated or unwilling ear) repetitive nature.

Monday night’s Big Room performance (a benefit for local community radio station KZFR 90.1 FM organized by Steve O’Bryan) was both sold out and sweetly excellent.

The group, which includes fiddler Kevin Burke, singer/mandolinist/guitarist/harmonica player Andy Irvine, accordionist Jackie Daly, guitarist and singer Ged Foley and newest member, banjo player/fiddler/flautist John Carty, have the ability to bring the listener to the roots of either a giddy joy or poignant sadness, and keep them there over the course of a song.

Early in the show, during a particularly lovely reel, I leaned over to the man seated next to me and whispered, “It’s so pretty.”

“Yeah, it’s just gorgeous,” he replied sincerely.

One two-song medley consisted of an Irvine original, “The Dream,” combined with a moving story song called “Indiana,” about an elderly Irish man who had moved to America’s Midwest when he was young to work and raise a family, and then “unimmigrated himself,” as the comedic Burke put it, to go back to his beloved homeland. Carty played flute on this one and Irvine sang, with a wistful honesty: “So tomorrow I’ll be leaving/ For the land I call my own … / And my friends there say I’m crazy/ Going back to such poverty.”

A series of jigs, including “Contentment is Wealth” and “Have a Drink on Me,” were some of the tunes which featured Burke and Carty on twin fiddles—very nice.

Irvine sang a “deliriously happy song,” as Burke introduced it, called “The King of Ballyhooly,” which was remarkable for the amount of (non-repeating) lyrics, and for the fact that Irvine sang it seemingly effortlessly.

Late in the evening, I looked out and saw a sea of shining faces engrossed in the sounds coming from the stage. I can safely say that the audience, with its spontaneous bursts of cheering, clapping-in-time, very audible foot-tapping, and exuberant demand for an encore, loved that show.