Friday, May 25, 2012

Visit To Baltimore

At the end of April I visited Baltimore. I had hoped to visit several sessions, but things conspired in a good way to keep me otherwise occupied. I have an aunt and three cousins in the Baltimore area and I wanted to visit them first of all. Originally thinking I'd go up in early May and catch the cherry blossoms and a session in DC too, that plan changed when another cousin in VA announced a wedding for the first weekend in May. 

The net result being I only had a chance to stop in to J Patrick's on the Tuesday after the Baltimore Irish Arts Center held their Baltimore Irish Trad Fest 2012. Originally I was supposed to get in to BWI at 5 PM on Saturday and I thought maybe I could catch the Saturday evening concert and session at Liam Flynn's Ale House. But our plane was delayed 5 hours and I didn't get to BWI until nearly midnight. I think it was midnight by the time I cleared the airport in the rental car.


Anyway after all the excitement of the weekend, the Tuesday session was a small, quiet affair. Which I found quite enjoyable. It gave me a chance to play some flute with Dan Isaacson on uilleann pipes, Donna Long on fiddle and Patrick MacCubbin backing on DADGAD guitar and also giving us some tunes on his flute. The four of us sitting around one of the small drink tables had a nice session. As expected I did a fair amount of listening, but that's good. Why travel someplace else just to play the same tunes you always play at home? They were all great players and very nice people. If you are in Baltimore, try to make it to J Patrick's. I know I will be there again sometime. There are sessions on many if not most days of the week, so check the schedule.

From the chat I gathered the festival went quite well, and everyone was still enjoying the warm glow days later. Maybe it would be smart to be sure to catch the festival next time I'm up that way, provided of course there are no family weddings. (The wedding was great by the way, glad I could make it.)

Stay "tuned",

Carey

PS - If you have not clicked on the links above, do yourself a favor and browse around the sites. You'll be glad you did.