Last night I had my first encounter with the uilleann pipes since I arrived in England for school in January. I thought I’d come down off my cloud to tell everyone about it.
“Last Night’s Fun” played a concert at the Exeter Pheonix Center last night in support of their latest cd. The theatre was very cozy - small and close. It was really the perfect atmosphere because the guys are so friendly and hilarious onstage. It had this wonderful informal, session-like feeling. Really casual. Most of the time they joked around about what a horrible sounding band they were, and then they’d bust into a reel that had everyone stomping their feet by the end of the first bars. They really sounded amazing. I would recommend their new cd - especially for their unique rendition of “Whiskey in the Jar” and “30-foot Trailer.” Nick Scott opened up the closing song with a beautiful slow rendition of a reel that I CANNOT think of the name of… You know it’s the one that goes BA dada DA DA dada DA…
Anyways I hung around after the concert waiting to hopefully get a chance to ask Nick if he had any leads on sessions in the area (he’s from Devon). He said no not really, but gave me his phone number to come out and jam with the band sometime!
So yes, last night was quite a night for me.
I think if there’s one thing that I kept thinking over and over while they were playing was how much they sounded like they had 6 instruments going, not 3. Such a full sound. The chords and phrases always seemed packed full of sound. I guess this was probably due to the regulators and drones humming away on Nick’s pipes. But still. With closed eyes, I don’t think I’d have guessed it was only three guys.
Ok, back to my wonderful Genome Analysis textbook. (This has been my life for the last week).
-Joey