Just Full of Surprises!

Thursday night I went to Vicar Street for the first time. It was a night that held many surprises for a woman such as myself.

The first one came early. I had agreed to meet my friend Jacqueline in the bar at Connolly Station. Being a true Dub, she has a strong mistrust of town and doesn't know her way around the place so it was up to me to decide where to meet. I suggested a few places which she responded to with discomfort ranging from blank stare to deer caught in headlights. Eventually, I was able to determine that her bus would drop her near the station and since I was going by train it made sense that we meet there. All was going swimmingly, meaning I hadn't missed the damn train, when I got a text message that read, "Bar closed. Off to a bad start." It was a good thing I was sitting down, let me tell you. A bar, in Dublin, closed at seven in the evening?!? Unheard of!

Jacquie managed the two point five second wait in the station very well. By that, I mean that she didn't accidently get on a train bound for Belfast nor was she accosted by any mad commuters. Since they changed the lighting in the bathrooms so that the junkies can't find their veins and added security, nobody very interesting bothers hanging out in the train station any more.

We left the train station and hailed a taxi. Well, it wasn't as if we actually hailed it, it was more like we got in and sat down when it pulled up along side of us and the door opened. Taxi magic. As we drove the short distance to Vicar Street, the cabbie struck up a conversation. Jacquie explained that the tickets we had were a birthday gift to her from her son and we were going to see The Legends of Irish Folk. Because he is Irish and naturally begrudging, the cabbie wasted no time in trashing everything about the performance we were about to see. Jacquie wasn't really bothered by it, but decided that now was a good time to tell me (an Irish folk neophyte) that we'd likely be the youngest people in attendance. Since this was Jacquie's 49th birthday, I was a little taken aback. I wasn't really bothered though; I knew there'd be a bar.

Since we had arrived well before the gig started, the bar was where we found ourselves before the show. As we walked in a wave of people walked in behind us. Most of them, as it turned out, were geriatric. In fact, we ended up giving our table away as we couldn't enjoy our pints while fearing that the old gentleman standing beside us might fall under the strain of his own body weight. Luckily, that was just at the time when the doors opened and we were invited to take our seats. Great seats they were too; we had a table in the second row. As the place filled up, I went to the bar for another round and we got ourselves settled for the show.

Just as the show started, a group of four large men about my age came and sat at the table behind us. There was some jostling as they organized themselves and I didn't pay much heed to being banged on the butt a couple of times as the first of the Legends took the stage. Up until that moment in time, I had thought that Ronnie Drew was just some quirky guy that Irish Rail hired as the poster boy for their expansion project. I listened as he told stories and sang songs in his gravelly voice and was glad I came.

Next up was Paddy Reilly. Again, I was blown away - I knew this guy! He's the voice of Carroll's Irish Gift Stores... if you spend more than a hundred euro in Carroll's, you get Paddy's cd free! Due to Carroll's being my store of choice for any overseas gift, I was at least familiar with a lot of Paddy's songs. Again, my butt was jostled. I started to think perhaps this wasn't as incidental as I'd imagined. I looked at the distance between our table and the one in front and then tried to look around to see whether there was an extra row of seats between our table and the next. Finally, I nudged Jacquie and asked her if my ass was overhanging my seat. She said she couldn't see as it was dark and asked me why. I said that the guy behind me kept bumping me and if he didn't stop, I was going to insist he buy me a drink. In my bid to not be heard by the guy behind me, I stage whispered this directly into the ear of the guy in front of me... smooth.

Intermission happened. There was more going to the bar, finding the loo and general reorganizing at the table. Then, my buddy behind, gave me the biggest knock of all. I turned and he said, "Oh, sorry, sorry, didn't mean to knock into you that time". To which I replied, "Ah, that's too bad, if you'd meant it I could have expected a drink". He copped my accent and asked where I was from, we chatted for a minute and then Finbar Furey took the stage. Now this is Jacquie's dream man. She'd been raving about him for ages and in fairness, I could see how some women would be attracted to him. I'd never thought of folk music as being sexy before I saw this man. Apparently, ole Finbar did something for Buddy Behind as well because by the time Liam Clancy took the stage, a pair of big hands were on either side of my hips, moving in a most erotic way.

I froze for a moment in what was either shock or enjoyment; maybe a bit of both, then turned and said, "Okay, now I KNOW that's on purpose!" To which he replied in what I'm sure was meant to be a drunken slur but for some reason came out as a sexy whisper, "Ah, yeah, but I'm not denying it now!" Going with my better judgement for a change, I asked him to stop. Unfortunately, he did. Just as abruptly, the concert ended. The lights went up; my buddy said good luck and good night and we all left Vicar Street.

I'm going back in March to see Des Bishop; I can't wait!