By George L. O'Brien - Arizona Irish Music Society (www.azirishmusic.com)
When it comes to Irish music, "March madness" has nothing to do with basketball. At times it seemed there was a major Irish/Celtic event or performance every week from late January to the end of March.
Going back to January, the Scots held a "Robert Burns" birthday celebration at the Dubliner and gave everyone a chance to taste haggis (oh yum). While this was a "Scotish" event, they had The Clare Voyants perform and Irish piper Caven Clark read the "Ode to Haggis" or whatever the poem is. I guess Haggis is an acquired taste, but at least the music was great.
Next was the Feis in the Desert. Anyone who imagines that the Irish dance "fad" would wear off a few years after Riverdance hit the scene should drop by a feis. There are more dancers than ever and the quality of the competition is just amazing. One the same weekend, the Trinity Dancers performed at the Orpheum Theater to a big audience.
The Colleen Pageant had a fine assortment of contestants. The winner, Bridget O'Neill is proving to be a very active Colleen and does a great job of representing the Phoenix Irish community. The pageant also introduced the new band Seanachie to the Irish community.
The Mesa Highland Games appeared to be as big or bigger than ever. They featured Alex Beaton and the Dallas Celtic group, Clandestine. Their performances were outstanding. Unfortunately, none of the local Irish groups were invited to play this year nor were any of the Irish dance schools asked to perform. It seems a shame, because the strong response we got at the Arizona Irish Music Society booth suggests there were a lot of Irish there.
John McMorrow and the Emerald Society held a fund raiser for the Irish Cultural Center at O'Connors. I did not get there until late, but the response was very good and they were able to raise over $5000.
Frank Patterson performed at the Orpheum as part of the Irish performer series put on by the Irish Gift House. Frank has gained considerable visibility with his PBS special.
Next came the St. Patrick's Day Parade and Irish Faire. The Faire has been widely praised as being the largest and most successful one yet. The music was well received and a good proportion of the audience stayed around through much of the day. The introduction of a second stage proved very successful and is likely to continue in future events. The two stages permitted us to run longer sets, which made it easier to keep the main stage on schedule and give more musicians a chance to play.
The featured band was Michael Duffy's Innis Mor, from County Mayo also played at the Emerald Ball that evening. Some people complained when we scheduled them at 3:00 PM. They claimed that everyone would leave before that. Fortunately, the master of ceremonies, Michael Perkins of radio station KTKP did a fine job of hyping the upcoming acts and really helped in keeping the audience. In any case, a big percentage of the audience stayed until late and we had upwards of 150 people at 5:00 PM when the main stage was closed.
This was a tribute to the great work by all the musicians and dancers. They should be recognized because they kept the audience attention for six hours: Main stage was One Eyed Fiona, Bracken School Dancers, Carroll MacGreggor, McElligott Irish Dance Company, Seanachie, McTeggart School Dancers, Innis Mor, and Joe Bethancourt. The Shamrock Stage opened with Rich Baily accompanied by Erin Lewis and Caitlyn Winters of Molly Malone. They were followed by the Young Olympians (who ran overtime). Pat and Rosie Maloney followed and then played in the Irish seisiun that followed. Caven Clark played the pipes for some dancers. Greg LaCosse finished up and then had a seisiun with Steve Colby. At 6:00 PM when we had to close, there were still two dozen people in the audience yelling out "one more time."
The day's madness continued with the Emerald Ball, featuring Innis Mor playing dance music. One of the evening's highlights was a plaque given to Mary Moriarity. What has she done? For just that day alone, Mary served as the Parade Committee's Treasurer, was in charge of the Faire vendors and site management, had faxed out the press releases, distributed the posters for event, made arrangements to get staff shirts, helped with publishing the St. Patrick's event program - AND helped the Emerald Ball deal with the caterers and in setting up the seating chart. (I should also note that she coordinates the food at the Irish Foundation picnics and the Arizona Irish Music Society events). Plaque? Heck Mary should be up for sainthood.
Six days later came St. Patrick's Day.
St. Patrick's Day is the one day in the year when every Irish musician finds more than enough work to do. Most groups/performers played at two or three venues and the dance schools were all over town. The crowds were just enormous. How crazy was it? After playing at the Dubliner for an hour, Carroll MacGreggor went to McCaffrey's and played for SEVEN HOURS. The crowd just wouldn't let them quit.
Apparently, the Blarney Stone had to close the outdoor stage at 11:00 PM due to Scottsdale noise rules, which is too bad. The group Ashling brought Sheila Maguire and Martin Lacy in town special for the weekend. (I heard them the following night and they sounded great).
That Sunday, the Tucson based Mollys came to Phoenix for their CD launch party (for their CD Only a Story) at "at Fiddler's Dream. There was a page #1 article in the REP (entertainment paper by the Arizona Republic) prior to their performance describing them as "Celtic-Tex/Mex". Their performance set an attendance record for Fiddler's Dream and they sold a large number of CDs.
The following weekend brought the American Ireland Fund dinner which included performances by John and Jerry McMorrow as well as the Celtic instrumental group Meadow Lark. Actually, the real party came the night before at O'Connors when John and Jerry McMorrow joined Dennis McMorrow, Kenny Mulqueen and Steve Colby of Seanachie plus Paul Knight of The Clare Voyants.
On the same weekend, a number of Irish/Celtic musicians performed at the Encanto Park folk festival including Rich Bailey, Steve Colby, Pat Maloney, Joe Bethancourt, the Rick and Steve duo, and Megha Morganfield.
On the following Thursday, the Saw Doctors came to town and further expanded their already fanatical following in Phoenix. They sold all but two of the CD's they had with them and everyone had a great time. (The Saw Doctors have a photo of the event on their web site which can accessed from the Touring Bands section of www.azirishmusic.com).
The next night featured Tony Kenny at the Orpheum Theater at the same time The Clare Voyants had their official CD party. See (The Clare Voyants Release First CD).
Of course, March madness was not limited to Phoenix. Tucson would have visits from the world famous Irish traditional band, Altan; the hot new traditional band, Lunisa; the Scotish group, Old Blind Dogs; and the Cape Briton based Mary Jane Lamont. Out in Apache Junction at the Renaissance Faire, a number of Irish/Celtic groups performed for two months including the Bringers, Molly Malone, Rossettistone, Dancing in the Iles (which did Irish dancing), Pay the Dog (a Celtic vocal trio), and Danu of Tucson (who play Celtic harp).
Through this period, the Arizona Irish Music Society has grown substantially. The e-mail list is now over 800 names. There were over 700 hits on the web site the week before St. Patrick's day. Sales are good for "An Irish Cookbook on CD-COM" (which includes music from several local artists such as the McMorrows, One Eyed Fiona, Carroll MacGreggor, Tony Cummins, Scott Jeffers of Wander the Earth, etc.) and is helping to introduce Arizona Irish music to the entire US.
The Arizona Irish Music Society will hold its first anniversary party on Sunday May 7th at O'Connors featuring many of the fine local musicians.
(This article will appear in May-June issue of the Desert Shamrock)
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