Irish-American Road Trip in Kansas City
The Irish Fireside blog have posted their 26th video from their Irish-American Road Trip, and this one is in Kansas City.
This one is mostly in Kansas City’s premier downtown Irish pub, Raglan Road, with shots of Danielle Fitzpatrick doing her Irish Dancing to music by house band Creel.
Brownes Irish Market & Deli also gets a mention:
It’s nicely produced and it probably gives you a good idea of just how many people are in Raglan Road listening to Irish music and watching Irish dancing.
Update: Some follow up
Eolaí gan Fhéile:
Glad they included Browne’s, the oldest Irish business in North America (although they seem not to have noticed) and legitimately a hub of Irish community in Kansas City.
At least they didn’t base their whole “Kansas City Irish experience” on a visit to Orlando’s latest entertainment export.
Maybe I haven’t had enough coffee yet this morning but there’s a number of things that just strike me as ‘disturbing’ about this video.
Maybe it’s that this ( supposedly ) wildly successful joint with corporate backing seems to come across about as ‘inviting’ as the dark part of a parking garage, even with a girl in a short skirt gyrating on a table.
Or maybe it’s her.
Yea, yea, I know… that tall post by the table is to help her get UP on the table but it just comes across as a ’stripper pole’… especially with all the 50-something business types staring at her. At any moment I expected her to grab the pole and stick her bum in the air. Maybe she did and I just missed it.
Or maybe it was the dress.
Almost hooker-pink. ( Or is it actually Fuchsia ).
Or maybe it was the quick shot of the ‘boys in the band’ who look so bored they might puke and who also didn’t seem to be paying any attention to whether they were matching the dancer’s steps. Maybe they just couldn’t hear each other but it just looked like everyone was in their own world thinking about their own laundry.
I’ll have another cup of coffee and watch this video again.
Maybe then there will be something inviting about it.
I hope it’s simply the fact that Eolai cleared your post later in the day or else you’re a man after my own heart and still drinking your morning coffee at nearly three p.m.
But I agree with your observations about the routine-ness of it all. The evening performances (and patronage) are a bit better, but there’s always a “the show must go on” (i.e. Branson) feel to the place.
It seems that spontaneity, like genuine Irish hospitality, is very difficult to fake.
At the risk of this becoming a ‘forum-style’ thread, with commenters speaking TO each other rather than commenting on the post… ( which I know Eolai doesn’t like ) let me be quick…
It WAS 3 PM and I WAS still on my first cup of coffee.
I was up until 6 AM programming so that people like us can
do this kind of public commenting stuff. Whoopee.
I DID watch the video again… and then a third time.
No joy.
‘Branson’ is the word, fer sure, but it still looks like a
stripper pole which is even hard to find in Branson.
Caveat: Got nothing against strip joints. Everyone has
to make a living. It just doesn’t fit what ‘Raglan’ SEEMS
to be trying to be, that’s all.
You are also spot on about’spontaneity and hospitality’
( regardless of whether it’s ‘Irish’ or not ).
It’s not only hard/impossible to ‘fake’… I’ll go you one better
and say it’s something that should never even be attempted.
See the posting ‘Last Night’s Fun’ on the IrishKC site.
It’s a testament to how good it can get when it’s all
REAL… not FAKE. I was there and I still remember
that night fondly. It just doesn’t get any better.
Personally, I don’t think it looks like a stripper pole. And, frankly, the camera was too far away from the musicians for them to look bored. And isn’t the dancer supposed to follow the music, not the musicians follow the dancer?
Re: Stripper pole? Of course that’t not what it really is… but
as far as it ‘looking’ like one… 5 people can witness any given
car crash and you will get 5 different versions so no surprise
that there will be different perceptions in this case.
Re: Camera too far away? See above about car crash and
people ’seeing’ different things from varying distances.
Some people see better than others, that’s all.
Re: Isn’t the dancer supposed to follow the music?
That’s about a 1,000 year old debate that I wouldn’t
touch with a ten foot pole. All I know is that when
some people are playing and some other people are
dancing it’s nice if they do it TOGETHER. That’s not
the case here, for whatever reason. If you watch
the video closely I think she just literally ‘got off on
the wrong foot’ and never adjusted, nor did the
fellas try to adjust. It just stated ‘off’ and pretty
much stayed that way. I really don’t think she
could HEAR them at all with the hardshoe making
such a racket underneath her.
Re: Is one video of an after-lunch slow moment enough
to judge a place? Of course not. I was just commenting
on this particular video made at this particular moment
in time. I certainly DO hope, for Raglan’s sake, that
the evening scene is quite different.
Kevin - just to be clear - I have no idea what time of the day this video was shot; it may well be an evening scene. I haven’t seen any reference to it being an afternoon scene. The after-lunch reference on another post refers to somebody else’s visit (TKC’s) than this videod one by IrishFireside.
Also - that 10 foot pole you wouldn’t touch the 1,000 year-old dancer following the music debate with, is it stripper pole?
Eolai…
Gosh, you’re right.
I just suffered from that known medical condition
‘multipostamania’ which is caused by reading too
much fourm/thread/post/feed/wall information too
quickly and then mixing up all the times and dates.
You are right.
I have no idea what time of day this way… but
now I am curious.
WAS that really an EVENING visit?
Gosh… I hope not.
Re: The ten foot pole.
No… the pole I wouldn’t even touch the dancer/musicians
‘there they go and I must follow for I am their leader’ debate
with is NOT a stripper pole…
.. it’s a big, long, square newel post with a round
bally-finial-type-thingy on the top that’s easy to
grab onto.
People may differ on what they notice, and on eyesite, but you can’t see what’s not there. It’s possible you can see better than me, but that doesn’t make the video of any higher quality.
People see what’s not there all the time, Ellen.
A recent presidential term pretty much proved that (again).
Converse is also true on a daily/hourly basis.
People don’t see what IS ( actually ) there.
There’s no one walking around breathing air
that doesn’t do one or the other and/or both
to some extent.
A man/woman sees what they want to see
and disregards the rest.
Paul Simon
Sic: Objectivity is always a matter of subjectivity.
I still think they ( the musicians in the distance )
look(ed) bored to tears. Your mileage may vary.