Let me tell you how worrisome it is to be fielding phone calls from work, regarding a relatively critical application only you know anything about while you’re holed up in a bar hiding from the pouring rain. Not a pleasant feeling. But, everything worked out in the end and the weekend turned out to be beautiful and everything was peachy – except not enough sleep, but that’s typical. My only regret is not having the clairavoyance enough to discern that Sunday afternoon was going to turn out spectacularly nice and would have been a most excellent time to be sitting in the Vet watching the Phils beat the pants off the Sox. That would have been a perfect capstone to a damn near perfect weekend but lying on the couch reading a book and resting my weary bones wasn’t all that bad either.
The festival Thursday night was pretty sweet too, seven bands (O’Malley’s March, The Prodigals, Black 47, Eileen Ivers, Hothouse Flowers, the Saw Doctors, and Flogging Molly) in almost a six hour show. Couldn’t say much for the Flowers or Saw Doctors – very poppy, very common, not any sort of traditional kick to it – but everybody else was way cool. Hell, the mayor was the lead in O’Malley’s march and introduced the rest of the bands. A couple of the lads from Flogging Molly – the drummer, George and the accordian player, Matt – stopped by to visit us out in the crowd and Matt even scored us enough passes to sit backstage for a while and talk to the rest of the band. Pretty cool, hanging with the Mollies, visiting with Kirwin from Black 47 and meeting the mayor. We didn’t hang on stage for the Molly’s set because we wanted to hear it but it was good to see everyone again, pity the set got cut short. A combination of PA troubles and a curfew we were already violating did them in after only three tunes. Ah well, those guys need a rest anyhow. You shoulda seen the far away look in their eyes.
Hell of a weekend altogether. Drinking and raising hell, playing at soldier and annoying the populace.
It just doesn’t get much better than that.