Seamus - all is well said and good; but, I would suggest that the pub patrons have changed over the last thirty-eight years and it's a different scene. I too, can handle an audience, but again, you cannot wring something out of nothing. It's one thing to have a throng of drinking, chatting folks who come to a bar to drink and chat; it's another thing to try to get something out of a throng of people who came there to drink, chat, and watch the ballgame, AND, contend with a club manager who insists that you turn it down because you're too loud when you can't even hear youself on stage.
That, in conjunction with the idea that virtually the whole crowd doesn't really give a damn that you're up there because if you were any good - you'd be somewhere else.

Seamus, I love ya, but pubs and bars just are not the same training ground they used to be. Cheers,...................mwh