I will keep my wordage to an absolute minimum here since I have written so much about the Highlander. Suffice to say that it was a thoroughly enjoyable open mic in Paris last night, and that like the one on Monday I had a meeting of minds with a foreign group on visit to this country. Also had a reunion with Ollie Fury for the first time since we played together in Singapore a few weeks ago. And got to see live David Broad play his St. James Infirmary, which is superb.
The meeting of minds, as it were, was with the two members of the band NoLand Folk from western Ireland.
I enjoyed their songs, especially the fun one about drinking up. And afterwards I spoke to Edel and found a lot of common ground, not just in music but in an interest in writing. But the high moment of that conversation was surely when we both connected totally on Paul Brady’s version of Arthur McBride, and we sang a few of the versions together. We both knew the video below as a high point of the return to Irish traditional music:
Here are a few of the videos I took from last night at The Highlander, oh, yes, and Thomas Brun’s version of the Dylan song, “Tangled Up in Blue,” which I love singing too, but cannot memorize….