Live Music: Paddy Keenan & Patsy O’Brien Play Missouri
Paddy Keenan & Patsy O’Brien are playing Irish music in Kansas City on Friday, November 30, 2007 at 8pm, and in Columbia, Missouri on Saturday, December 1, 2007 at 7pm.
The KC performance is a joint presentation between the MVFS (Missouri Valley Folklife Society) and the IMCC (Irish Museum and Cultural Center), and the Columbia concert is presented by the Central Missouri Celtic Arts Association (CMCAA).
Missouri was very lucky last weekend. As well as having Chulrua in Kansas City, the rather magnificent Patrick Street were playing in Jeff City.
And now Missouri is very lucky again.
Paddy Keenan is, how do I put this? - if there were such a thing as Irish Trad royalty then Mr Keenan would be it. I read nonsense every week about this band or that performer being the greatest Irish whatever that this part or that part of America - if not all of it - has seen. Comparisons are indeed odious but since you ask, you are talking about uilleann piping of the highest order with Paddy Keenan.
The Bothy Band, along with being one of the greatest bands playing trad are one of the most influential traditional bands you will ever hear. Paddy Keenan was with the Bothy Band from creation in 1974 to the end five years later.
There are people who book Irish music in Kansas City who know little of the history of Irish traditional music and consequently have little regard for its giants. The MVFS consistently brings great quality to KC. Paddy Keenan is a giant. If you really like Irish music, then you really will want to catch a performance of Paddy Keenan and Patsy O’Brien. Really.
What does Patsy O’Brien sound like? Damien Rice? Robbie Robertson? Tom Waits? He’s an accomplished and acclaimed singer-songwriter, inventive and original, and if you visit, for example, this page on CD Baby then you’ll be able to listen to all the tracks from his new CD The Magician’s Daughter, and you can decide for yourself what he sounds like.
Here, courtesy of YouTube is a slow air from Keenan:
And here is Paddy in The Bothy Band from way back in the day - playing The Morning Star, The Fisherman’s Lilt and The Drunken Landlady:
The CONCERTS
• KC - IMCC at Union Station, Nov 30, 8pm
Prices are $15.00 general admission; $12.00 for MVFS, Crosscurrents, and Irish Museum and Cultural Center members; Students $5.00
• Columbia - Unity Center of Columbia, 1600 W. Broadway, Dec 1, 7pm
Admission at the door: $14 adults; $12 CMCAA members; $8 students, seniors and youth; free for kids 10 & under
Read Also: 2005 article by Mary Armstrong on Paddy Keenan
Eolaí gan Fhéile:
Paddy was down here in Little Rock back in September. We had just spent the previous weekend in Jackson, Mississippi, where he and John Walsh were headliners. Does it surprise anyone that we went to the Little Rock gig as well? It was an otherwordly performance. I’m tempted to go to Kansas City that weekend, no matter high gas goes. If you’re lucky enough to live in that area, GO TO THE CONCERT!!! You’ll never hear better.