Sean’s Sunday Session

This Sunday was another great session in Sean’s Bar.

Per usual, families and individuals packed into the place and musicians slotted in around a couple of tables. Pants was still in town and I was glad that she had the chance to join us on the Sunday morning in Sean’s.

At one point she leaned over to me and said, “You know, the one thing that my friends are amazed by when they read your blog is that these sessions are happening in pubs where there are lots of other people – like you can just walk into a pub in Ireland and there could be some musicians in a corner playing away. Why don’t you put more pictures up showing the session from a distance, so you can see the crowd and the pub they’re in.”

No hassle, pants, there’s your room pic there on the right.

It was a week of the past coming back in different guises for me, musically. Years ago back in San Francisco, I heard a David Francey song on KPFA called Torn Screen Door. I love the song, an a capella piece, and when I first moved to Ireland I had made a copy of it for a friend so we might learn it. That was almost 5 years ago. At the session this week, Gib picked up a guitar and began to play and sing Torn Screen Door, in a completely different arrangement from the original like this.

It just goes to show that a good song shines through, no matter how it’s played.

A little later in the session, the bean pulled out a version of Wayfaring Stranger (that’s angel and wifey trading verses there). Wifey and I had recorded a completely different arrangement of Wayfaring Stranger back in 2001 on our first demo EP (you can listen to that version on Kerbside’s website here).