"Shows", Uncle Phil.
Shows.
... the truth is soon unfolding....

I was sitting in the pub when they drove up in the hired Ford somethingorother van.
Toldboden in Marstal is one of those pubs that you come across only every once in a while. It's the old Customs building, and when you walk in, you can see the old workmanship that has gone into it. The surroundings are plush, without giving that impression of presumption or expense.

Anyway...., I went out and Jordan was the first guy I met. Then Aoife, Tania, Scott, and Leonard.
They didn't seem overly worried that the PA system hadn't arrived yet. Marstal, early on a Sunday afternoon, is not the most active time of the week, and when it hadn't arrived by 30 minutes to kick-off time, the Duhks decided to do the whole thing unplugged.
We had about 40 locals and a few Danish friends of the band, and that was it!

Aoife Donovan from Boston, who I gather is the new lead singer, has a voice second to none, and she and Tania bounce well off each other. Leonard's clawhammer style on the 5 string janbo is 'awesome' (a superlative I got used to hearing over the weekend, as well ;-)) Scott's got rhythm, and he can knock out some patterns that 'all-in-one' drum of his (I forget the name of those kind of drums, now)

There is always something a bit strange about being a fairly famous band playing a gig in a place where none of the audience have ever heard of you.
If you (as a famous band) impress such an audience, then I think you sort of have it made as a musician.

Toldboden acoustically rocked on Sunday evening, and towards the end of the second set, Aoife announced that they would do another gig on Monday evening at 7pm, even though it was supposed to be their day off.
I'm just after leaving the after-party of it not long ago. There was a few more around tonight; among them a few bemused German sailor-types, whom the high winds and heavy seas yesterday left stranded on the island for another day.
I've been playing in a pub up the street during the summer, and the Duhks had been piling up to my gig after they'd finished playing, for food and pints.
We've all had a good weekend.... ;-)

Jordan is a luthier in his home incarnation, and when Scott told me that he had made a guitar for John Doyle, I told him I'd be in touch over the next year about something similar (I want to 'retire' my Washburn soon, and I need one with my own specs stamped on it, anyway...) Jordan uses a '70 as his bottom string in his 'Dropped D' setting. It's also one of his own guitars.
His DAGDAD guitar, incidentally, is a Larivee.
Say no more....

The Duhks, ladies and gentlemen, are not only brilliant individual musicians; they are great craic as well.
They have said that they will never forget this weekend.

I have a tendency to believe them. ;-)

B.