Day One was glorious. Just glorious. The Makem and Spain Brothers were great as always. Gaelic Storm put on an awesome show including versions of their hit song "Johnny Tarr" as sung by Michael Jackson, Shakira, Kenny Chesney, Norah Jones, and Led Zeppelin. There were some other small bands that were really good. The highlight, though, was the ( Read more... )

Great Big Sea needs to return to Irish Fest. Soon.

Milwaukee Irish Fest begins tomorrow! I'm excited, as I am every year, but it'll be sad to have a Fest without Tommy Makem. There will be three big tribute concerts with a bunch of different musicians, so that should be nice. Tomorrow is just a warm-up night with a few bands I've never heard of, but it's the best night to go shopping, since ( Read more... )

1. It's pretty obvious that Barry Bonds did steroids at some point, particularly when he hit 73 homers in 2001 at age 37 after previously never hitting more than 47. That said, even without the juice, he's one of the greatest players ever. The tragedy is that being ONE OF the greatest ever wasn't good enough for him. He saw the adulation that ( Read more... )

Goodbye, Tommy. Thank you for years of great concerts, for giving me the courage and inspiration to make music myself, and most importantly, for being a kind and generous person. God bless ( Read more... )

 I wandered through Midtown in the morning and passed by Carnegie Hall and the former Plaza Hotel (again, known to me as the backdrop for Home Alone 2), which is now being converted into condos. Then I had lunch at the Carnegie Deli, where the waiters are supposed to be rude and customers are disappointed if they’re polite. I think I’d enjoy ( Read more... )

 Due to my mediocre accomodations, it was relatively easy to wake up at 7am. I made it down to the Empire State Building a little after 8 and walked right in, a far cry from the hour-long wait of the day before. I paid the exorbitant $18 and took the elevator up to the spectacular 102nd floor. Suffice it to say, Manhattan from above cannot be ( Read more... )

 Taking the New York subway on weekends can be maddening. There are invariably track changes and certain trains that aren’t running, or are running on different tracks, or are bypassing certain stations. It’s not uncommon to have to make 2-3 transfers between lines. The announcements over the PA on the trains and in the stations are usually ( Read more... )

I believe I can be more concise (and thus hold the reader’s attention for longer) if I write in bullet points and avoid getting carried away in flowery prose ( Read more... )

Just finished 11 consecutive hours of work today. Very profitable but veeeeeery long. In the afternoon, it was really windy on the patio, and an umbrella fell on top of a woman. One of the waitresses ran over to see if she was okay when a woman from another table tapped her and said, "excuse me, you forgot our tomato sauce." Some people ( Read more... )