Musical Week

This week I've had two very different, very cool musical experiences, one in an Irish pub in midtown and one at The Apollo Theater in Harlem.

O'Neill's

On Sunday night, I met up with my friend Chris for dinner. Chris is a musician, and when we realized that the night was still young after we'd finished eating, his face lit up and he said he knew where to find the best Irish music in town. I didn't know where to find any Irish music, so I deferred to him, and we headed to an Irish pub called O'Neill's that's not too far from where I do coat check.

This is not actually O'Neill's, but you get the idea.

The band was composed of maybe 7 people at the playing fiddles, guitars, flutes, drums, and an instrument that Chris told me is called a concertina (it looks like an accordion). To my surprise, there was no stage; the musicians were just sitting around a table. The bar was absolutely packed, and every second person seemed to be from the emerald isles of Erin. Normally, I can't stand bars with blaring music, but in this case I would have liked a little more volume. It was tough to hear the music unless you were lucky enough to get fairly close. Each member of the band kept putting down one instrument and picking up another, which I thought was pretty impressive. And at one point, a narrow clearing was made in the crowd so that a few of the girls could perform an impromptu traditional Irish dance (think Riverdance) on the spot. It was free and it was great.

Wednesday night, Dave and I at long last went to Amateur Night at the Apollo Theater in Harlem. Amateur Night takes place every Wednesday, and we've been saying we were going to go for ages. It's sort of like American Idol, in that the audience is encouraged to boo the performers they don't like off the stage and applaud the ones they do. At the end, all the ones who have survived their performances come out and the audience picks a winner by cheering as loudly as they can for their favorite.

The performances were all pretty incredible. There were singers, dancers, and musicians of all kinds. The winner was a trio of male dancers, two black and one Japanese, who did a really cool robotic/light show/hip-hop medley (it is difficult to describe...). Second place went to a group of about 20 high school kids who played a Rhianna song on steel drums. And third went to a rapper, who was good, but not as good as the spoken-word poet I was pulling for.

We had a great time, although somehow we managed to get seats directly in front of (I swear this is true) 30 guys between the ages of 20 to 22. They were endearingly enthusiastic for the most part, particularly in their commentary about an all-female dance troupe in tights, but there was one kid who thought it was really fun to boo everyone, loudly, and did it just because he could, sometimes before they even began performing. He must have gotten bored of it eventually, because he piped down during the second half. The teacher in me was dying to give him detention.

It never ceases to amaze me how much talent is in this city, and performances like the ones I saw this week make it impossible to forget that fact.