Current mood:	happy
Current music:	Chaos A.D. - Mind War Electro

Irish Music in Meeting Halls
So last night tenu and I went to see Grada perform at a local Knights of Columbus meeting hall. Despite some early finding the place type difficulties (for some reason Mapquest didn't understand the differences between Circuit Street East, West, North and South), we arrived just on time to buy tickets and look around the place a bit before the show. Well, look around the place is a bit extreme. More like stand in the lobby area, as I was pretty much completely uncomfortable and offput by the fact that, although it was open to the public, everyone there seemed to be in on this whole Knights of Columbus thing. So there was alot of "Hey Jim! There you are!" being shouted from across the room. I have to admit to having a bit of irrational anxiety of situations like this. For some reason I feel as if at any moment, everyone is going to realize I don't belong there. Which is pretty silly, but it didn't matter because soon the doors were open, and after a few nerve wracking moments of us being seated at a table with several other regular members, the show started.

The band was really really amazing. They play very traditional Irish music, but quite alot of their own material, which is all played in a pretty traditional Irish manner. Some of the instruments I was unfamiliar with and amazed by, such as a drum the lead singer had that made sounds kindve like drops of water when struck in a certain way. Anyhow, it created the most fantastic little staccato rhythms. They played a new song that they had never performed before, written by their double bass player called "Red Civic" which was as he stated rather sheepishly "about a car I head back in New Zealand", which the both of us thought was really cute and completely like something we would do. We tend to personify and magify(lol is magify a word?) vehicles we have that've taken us on long trips, as they always seem like dependable friends who are bestowers of freedom and good fortune. They also aparently all had the flu, which further amazed us since we both have trouble sitting up in bed to watch a movie or put on our shoes when we have the flu, let alone romp around a stage banging on drums and singing at the top of our lungs. Oh, they were also quite amazed at all our snow, as aparently it snows about once every three years where they come from. In between songs they would relate little stories about how amusing it was to see "a motorbike with just the two little mirrors sticking out", and sometime during their performance it started to snow quite heavily outside so that seemed really fitting.

Im probobly forgetting a ton of little details and stories here, but really the main thing is they were really awesome and well worth the price of admission (and the freaky meeting hall with a close knit group of people attending!). I really have enjoyed all of the live music we've been seeing recently (a TON of stuff at first night and now this). Im now totally in the mood to find some good Jazz playing somewhere and check that out. In fact, I think before my approach to seeing live music was totaly wrong. I used to only go see acts that I knew well, and the problem with that is, its either really good -- and basically like listening to the CD but in a club. Or really under your high expectations for a favorite act and therefore disapointing (Squarepusher with sound engineering at a club so bad you couldn't hear anything). I think now that going to see smaller artists we've never heard before and coming in with limited expectations is the way to go. Broaden the horizons and end up having more fun and bestowed with a sense of a night of musical adventure to boot.

They'll be playing in CT this week, you can check the dates and times up on their website and if you're anywhere near them it'd be worth it to go check it out!