The Pirate Flags at Max’s
We played our first gig on Friday nite at Max’s, it was a blast, and the place was packed. I feared we might be too loud (I have always played “acoustically”, but this band has twinges of rock and roll, and my banjo was plugged in to a DI). Travers dressed as a Pirate, as did the rest of the band, but we may not be quite so dressed up till next “Talk Like a Pirate Day”. Everyone had a good time, it looks like we will keep playing our salty old tunes for a while. We are are playing in the Battle of the Bands at Festers on Tues Oct 21, and we are scheduled for the day after Thanksgiving at Max’s, perhaps the Spoon or Player’s Pub, I know there will be venues! This winter, Treasure Island is being produced by the Cardinal Theater, so perhaps our band will still be afloat at that time.
The show was for WFHB, and it the audience was great. My buddies from the Friday night session at the Spoon showed up as well, and the benefit was a success (money was made!) I played for a couple of hours before the show so I was well warmed up, but I still have some work to do in working with an amplified banjo! I’ve been using the Kid’s, which has a pickup built-in. This been a bit of workout as his banjo is tuned like a viola, CGDA, rather than the more common violin tuning often used for Irish music GDAE. This second tuning makes it easy to follow the tunes as I can watch the fiddle player’s figures when I am lost. With the CGDA tuning, you have to use A fingering to play in D and D finger to play in G, and so. But it sure is interesting to play that way, I may try it on my (shorter necked) tenor.
-
- Pirate Mitch playing banjo
-
- The Pirate Flags at Max's
-
- Irish musicians and WFHB supporters
