The Big Week
♫ Wednesday, March 17th, 2004The St. Patrick’s Day timeframe is the Big Week for Irish bands. In Raleigh, the St. Patrick’s Day Parade does not happen on the actual St. Patrick’s Day (3/17), but on the Saturday before.
Given the number of places to play and the number of bands available to cover them, the schedule became very complicated. Also adding to the mix was that Mitch Ferguson was returning for the week to play at a number of venues. Given that I’m in two bands and Hunter is in 3, I ended up creating a matrix to show who was playing where.
Here is how my week goes: Last Saturday, my first gig with Baile Daire was at Tir na nOg Irish Pub from 11:00 – 3:00. Then I played with Baile Daire at Ri~Ra Irish Pub from 3:00 – 6:00. The I played with Finvarra at Kings from 10:00 – till 2:00.
Last night I had played a solo gig at Spring Arbor Assisted Living center. Today I have to big gigs at Ri~Ra from 4:00 – 6:00 and then we finish off at Greenshields from 7:00 – 11:00 [our fifth year there].
After today, we return to our normal level of playing (Knockma playing each Friday at Ri~Ra, Baile Daire playing 1-2 times a month), continue work on our CD, and begin planning for next year.