last night i went to see paddy keenan and sean tyrell at the tractor tavern in seattle. it was quite an experience; hope you guys don't mind if i share.

i had never heard a note from these guys previously, but their names were vaguely familiar, and i knew sean had written "the 12th of july" which is one of my current favorite songs. so i went, with few expectations. well, paddy was totally on that night playing rollickin' good tunes on pipes and whistles and cracking jokes in between (he told us about making whistles out of television arials as a kid in dublin! haha!)... and sean was drunk on his ass and playing like he'd never seen his instruments before in his life. he was truly awful. missing notes, losing the rhythm, forgetting the tune, playing the wrong chords... i was embarrassed for him, and clearly paddy was too. at one point he made some crack about waking up the next morning without a hangover, and sean deflated and looked shamed. after a while they invited a few musicians up who were in the audience (flautist, fiddler, bouzouki player) and the four of them managed to cover up sean's bungling.

finally when they were done and taking their applause and preparing for their encore, i screwed up my courage and called out "twelfth of july!" i figured, so he's wasted, what the hell. i paid my fifteen bucks to see this song, and now i want to see it!

so paddy looked right at me and said in his wonderful lilt, "the twelfth of july? is that a tune?" everybody giggled, but he seemed genuinely confused. i said "it's a song", and then he understood: uh oh, she's asking to end the evening with a solo from the drunken sod. panic! he started to ask the group of us if we wanted a song or a tune for the encore, but then sean waved him off and slobbered "wegottimewegottime..." he was really in a bad way by now and i started to wonder if i was just a big troublemaker.

but then he stopped and settled into himself for a moment, and as he started to introduce the song, i could see that he was suddenly much more sober. he told us about one night when he was unable to sleep, so he went flipping through old books he had laying around. he stumbled upon this poem that was so beautiful and so moving, and it fitted well with a tune he had written recently, "lament for the children". so the song was born, and then he began to sing it for us.

he was amazing. now his clumsiness was more like the raw honesty you see in irish pubs about the middle of the evening when people are just drunk enough to hear all the sorrows of the world whispering to them alone... i got chills, and i think everyone else did, too. when he finished there was an audible sigh, followed by thorough and hearty applause. paddy just sat for a bit, and for the first time that evening, he didn't say anything at all. i can imagine that touring and performing with an alchoholic was turning out to be a big pain in the ass for him, and it would be easy to forget that this drunk was also a brilliant musician who had created great beauty in his time. paddy started to play his tune, and it began very slow and moving, segueing into a grand reel, and everyone clapped along and hooted and whistled, and when it was done we went home happy.