• When I went to college in Manch-vegas, I spent more than a bit of time there.
• When I lived in Mont Vernon, I’d go every Thursday night to hear Marty Quirk sing.
• I became friends with some of the regulars and they invited me to join Manchester’s Ancient Order of Hibernians.
• The Rover is where I learned to play bodhran, where I first got on stage to sing, and where I had my first St. Patrick’s Day gig as part of the band, Shillelagh.

The trinity celebration

Well, I’m happy to say I’ve got a bit of a homecoming in a couple of weeks, as Dave and I will be playing the Wild Rover Celtic Festival. This is a tremendous event that includes three features:

1) The 21st Annual Halfway to St. Patrick’s Day 5K Road Race, which is benefits the Make A Wish Foundation. (I remember working a mile marker for this race when I was with the Hibos.)

2) A St. Baldrick’s fundraiser. This is a fun event that involves people shaving their heads for money, and that money goes for childhood cancer research. This local event is part of a national campaign which has seen 187,000 “shaves” raise more than $114 million since 2000.

3) And, of course, there’s live music and exhibits throughout the day. My friends Marty Quirk and Kevin Dolan will be playing earlier in the afternoon, and after we play there will be a U2 tribute band called New Years Day. There will be several schools of Irish dance taking the stage for demonstrations, and countless booths from local vendors and exhibitors to visit, including our good friends from Celtic Crossing in Portsmouth and the Seacoast Irish Cultural Association (SICA).

The race starts at 10 a.m. and the festival starts at 11 a.m. We’re tentatively scheduled to play between 4:30 and 6:30 p.m., so we hope you’ll stop by to visit and enjoy the day.

And if you decide to shave your head…lemme know and I’ll kick in a few bucks.

Would you shave YOUR head? These guys are doing it to help children with cancer.

The day kicks off with the 21st annual 5k road race to benefit the Make A Wish Foundation

Pete and Tom, on stage together at Ri Ra

This special event, which will be held at The Stone Church in Newmarket, NH, is the brainchild of Tom Lanigan and Reagh Greenleaf. They were planning a half-way to St. Pats show, but they wanted to expand it beyond just their band. They instantly thought of òran mór, since we have a mutual admiration of each others’ acts, we sit-in with each other once in awhile, and we’ve been wanting to do a double-bill sometime.

We’re thrilled that “sometime” is now going to be Sept. 16.

The doors open at 6 p.m. The gameplan for the evening is that òran mór will play for the first part of the night (7 p.m.). Then Tom, Reagh, Sue Young, and Jordan Tirrell-Wysocki will take the stage (9 p.m.). We’ll close the night with a big ol’ jam together.

Tickets are $10 each, but here’s the thing: Only 100 tickets will be sold.

Don’t be left out…you can order ticket now by getting in touch with us, or clicking HERE.

It’s gonna be a mighty night of music and craic…hope to see you there!

Stay tuned for more details…

]]> http://www.oranmor.net/2011/08/half-way-to-st-pats-celebration-at-the-stone-church/feed/ 5 http://www.oranmor.net/2011/03/a-st-pats-treat/ http://www.oranmor.net/2011/03/a-st-pats-treat/#comments Thu, 17 Mar 2011 00:07:31 +0000 Pete Hale http://www.oranmor.net/?p=1604 ” Twas the night before St. Pats and all through the pub

Song list and back cover for our recording debut

That’s right kids … we have an early shipment of our upcoming CD in hand and we’ll have them available for the gig tomorrow at Ri Ra! We’re looking forward to making this a memorable day, and we rushed a shipment of a few just in time for St. Patrick’s Day. We’re waiting for a few things to line up before the official release (awaiting quotes on a larger duplication run, finalizing the legal mumbo-jumbo, artwork revisions,etc.), but we thought it’d be worth it to get a few to share with our friends on St. Pat’s 2011.

Actually, we’re supposed to get the CD sleeves delivered tomorrow…so we’ll be busy little beavers in the morning before we take the stage at noon. I’m planning to start the day with a traditional Irish breakfast at Rory O’Connors in Georgetown before picking up the shipping package…and then we’ll be stuffing like maniacs.

The tracks on the CD are a bunch of our favorites and ones we get requested frequently by our friends. You can clearly read the titles in the photo, but one you might not be familiar with is The King’s Highway. That was written by a friend of mine, Kevin Dolan of the fab band Acoustic Nuisance. I got his permission to do a new take on an old song of his. I’m very happy he let me play around with is creation.

If you couldn’t already guess, we recorded it at Mill Pond Music in Portsmouth with our friend Jim Prendergast, who many of you have seen play with us on occassion on Monday nights. He did a fantastic job engineering this thing and keeping Dave and I focused. We’ve posted a few samples on the website’s media player, so you can get a feel for the quality. We’re pretty proud of these recordings and think you’ll enjoy the tracks.

More on this when in a few weeks when the ‘official’ release happens…but in the meantime, HAPPY ST. PATRICK’S DAY!

* fear an ti = Gaelic for “man of the house” or host

They’ll be great music all month, of course, and we’ll be breathing it deep and building the excitement. So don’t be shy!  Get out there, enjoy the celebrations and get your Irish on!

Looking old school...except for the mikes.

]]> http://www.oranmor.net/2011/03/stpats-approaches/feed/ 0 http://www.oranmor.net/2011/02/well-deserved-staff-night/ http://www.oranmor.net/2011/02/well-deserved-staff-night/#comments Sun, 27 Feb 2011 14:02:59 +0000 Pete Hale http://www.oranmor.net/?p=1590 Hey all,

Okay, we originally thought that we were playing our usual Monday gig at RiRa tomorrow night (2/28)…but it turns out they’ll be closed for a  staff appreciation night.

But it’s a great opportunity for us to say “thanks” to the staff at Ri Ra. We’ve been playing there every Monday for about a year and they ALWAYS take terrific care of us. They are a great and fun group of guys and gals…and we’re so grateful to be able to work with them on a weekly basis.

The RiRa Gang

So, thanks gang. You deserve a night off…especially as you charge up for the ‘high holiday’ that’s coming in two weeks.

Yes, we’ve been dreadfully negligent about  keeping up our posts on the website.  Somehow, that danged ‘real life’ stuff has distracted us during the last couple of months. But we are still playing every Monday night at RiRa in Portsmouth NH from 7 – 10pm…so if you need your fix…

We call him Seamus

Actually, if you haven’t stopped in for a while, you should know that we continue to be joined by many of our musical friends on a regular basis. We’ve had a good stretch of being joined by Jim Prendergast — formerly of Nashville’s “Boys of County Nashville” and now proprietor of Mill Pond Music Studio in Portsmouth, NH. He’s a great guitar player and even better guy, so we love it when he stops in.

Of course, with the St. Patrick’s Day holiday approaching, we have several gigs lined up that we will be telling you about.

In the meantime, however, if you want to get your Irish on, we’d love to see you on a Monday night.

Actually, this year was a fantastic St. Patrick’s Day season, with lots of friends, music, dancing and all around great craic. The afternoon gig at Ri Ra was fantastic, and we enjoyed the evening at Feile Restaurant and Pub in Wells ME. The requests for songs were non-stop…and I thought I’d share two interesting requests.

First, if you’ve ever seen us perform, you’ve probably heard me make the joke that we welcome requests — “especially if they’re written on the back of a $5 bill.” For the first time, someone actually took me up on it. 

Payday!

It was while we were playing The Port Tavern in Newburyport with Terry Weir (as Sligo Road). As you can see, it was a plum request … Ewan MacColl’s Dirty Old Town … which we did our best on since it’s not part of the regular repetiore. We even gave the guy a money-back guarantee in case our attempt was less than he expected. But he was happy enough and insisted we keep it.

The other request came while Dave and I were at Feile late on St. Patrick’s Day. A very nice, older woman was sitting with her friends and family at a table right in front of the stage … it was tight quarters, too. I could have swiped a chicken finger, no problem.

"Why, yes! I DO know that song!"

Anyway, we set up our gear and finally started playing and, part way through dessert (say 8pm), she handed up a note that read:

“When I was in Ireland a singer at a pub [sang] about a man trying to get blocks on a rope but kept falling up + down.”

After deciphering the handwriting, a huge grin came over my face. This lovely woman had requested one of my all-time favorites to sing. Pete Cooksey’s The Sick Note (also known as Dear Boss). I read the note aloud to the congregation, err, the crowd, and launched into it. I don’t want to brag, but the audience was pleased and impressed…either because I knew the song, or because they’d been drinking pints since 3 pm that afternoon.

The funny thing is: This song has twice made me look like a rock star. Dave actually has a recording from when we had the session at Molly Malone’s, and a woman requested it for her husband. On the recording, you can distinctly hear her squeal “Oh, yes! That’s it!”

But I’ll let you in on a secret – I love this song. I used to play Robbie O’Connell’s recording of it all the time, and the only reason I don’t sing it more often is that the joke loses its luster for those people who come to see us all the time. You have to pace yourself with that one.

Speaking of requests, if you have any and you haven’t seen us for  a bit, you might want to swing by KATE O’SHEA’s in Seabrook NH this weekend. We’ll be playing there on SATURDAY night, APRIL 10.

We’d love to see you and get you joining in the songs.

Glowing with the approach of St. Patrick's Day

I always loved that ole bit of poetry that goes “In Spring, a young man’s fancy turns to thoughts of St. Patrick’s Day…” or something like that.

Whatever the quote (yes, I know the real one), it is that time of year when we find people really DO want to listen to a variety of Irish songs and tunes…some they know, and some they have yet to discover. Well, we have a bunch of dates coming up that you may want to mark on the calendar…and we hope to see you soon so we can play the stuff you know, and maybe introduce you to a new favorite!

• March 15, 7-10pm  @ Ri Ra, Portsmouth, NH
• March 16, 11:30a-1:30pm @ Brooksby Village Retirement Community, Peabody, MA (as Sligo Road w/ Terry Weir) 
• March 17, 1-4pm  @ Ri Ra, Portsmouth, NH
• March 17, 7:30-10:30pm  @ Feile Restaurant, Wells, ME
• March 21, 5:30-8:30pm  @ The Port Tavern, Newburyport, MA (as Sligo Road w/ Terry Weir)
• March 22, 7-10pm  @ Ri Ra, Portsmouth, NH
• March 29, 7-10pm  @ Ri Ra, Portsmouth, NH

Ewww...green beer.

Somewhere along the line, a funny name was given for March 16th…St. Practice Day…since people would get together to have a few jars and celebrate before the actual celebration. It’s kind of like Christmas Eve, but will mass quantities of alcohol.

Well, our friends at McMenemy’s decided that there really shouldn’t be an off-season for celebrating Irish-ness, so they’ve designated the 17th of every month as St. Practice Day. Talk about dedication to the cause! And this Monday is August 17 and òran mór will be on hand to provide the appropriate music!

Festivities start at 7 pm, so come on by!

If you missed the festivities, check out some of the photos that Beth Therriault took of us during our Sunday show at Kelley’s Row. She’s a great photog that specializes in events and weddings – and she offered to capture a few shots of òran mór in action. Hey, she’s so talented she makes us look good.

And a special thanks to our friend, the lovely and talented Sue Young, who stepped up on Tuesday to cover for Dave at the noontime gig. She was great, and now we have the makings of a new super group — sú & mór!

I'm not that much shorter than Dave, am I?

The artsy shot

Bob and Dave belt one out