GARY'S TRAVEL BLOG (FALL 2024 PART 1)!!!
Well it's been a couple months since our last run of shows. The downtime is nice, but fiddle strings, beer, and taco bell are not free. Plus, Baltimore Gas and Electric keeps calling me for some reason…so it's time to hit the road again! We're well into our (almost) Fall run and we've had some great shows at both old and new spots. We've also got some new blood in the band so this was a great opportunity to try to scare him away before he got too comfortable.
First stop was Rochester, NY at a small bar called the Abilene Bar and Lounge. The owner, staff, and patrons were incredibly friendly and hospitable. The stage was not. This was not the first time we've squeezed seven people onto a surface the size of a saltine cracker and I'm sure it won't be the last, but I suppose anything is possible with enough Genesee Cream Ale. We packed up the trailer in the torrential downpour and headed back to our Airbnb for a well-earned workout in the basement, which was full of exercise equipment….and not poop….that was a nice change.
Next day found us at the Pocono Irish American Festival in Stroudsburg, PA. Our friends in Bastard Bearded Irishmen and Sheridan Rúitín were there as well…and so was the rain. But despite this, we had a great time. We got to see some old mates, the organizers made us feel welcome, and the rain clearly didn't stop Stroudsburg from coming out to party with us. Very impressive and we hope to be back soon.
On to the next one! The following weekend we headed right back to New York for a return trip to The Garage at Lucy's. It's always nice when the staff remembers you and makes you feel at home and that was definitely the case here. After a couple well lubricated sets (shout-out to High West Double Rye) we shipped off to our Airbnb in Milford Connecticut as we'd be making our debut at Milford Irish Fest the next day.
After a sausage gravy induced coma put us out of commission for most of the day, we managed to drag ourselves to the fest. We had a fantastic time, almost against our will, as our lovely stage attendant seemed to take it as a personal insult if any of us didn't have a full pint of Guinness in our hand at any given moment. We played our asses off, Brendan exercised his raffle drawing voice, and we headed back to our lodgings. But not before Bill and I took a leisurely stroll through the local Total Wine to pick up some champagne (aka High Life), where we managed to find a $55,000.00 bottle of Balvenie.
Unfortunately we couldn't afford it (even though Kilmaine Saints is obviously very popular and wealthy and also handsome) because Tammi spent all of our money on frozen pizza, which she then proceeded to turn into a non-Newtonian fluid in the oven. No matter, still good. We ate, drank, and laughed the night away as we welcomed Kramer (aka Saucy Jack) into the fold as our new drummer. This was his second weekend gigging with us and he fits in perfectly. I'll leave it up to you to interpret what that says about his personality…
More to come...
-Gary
