The acclaimed Irish group, Slide, is coming to town.
“They can sing, they can write, they can dance across fingerboards and piano keys, buttons and bows, and by crikey can they play.” Wish we’d written that, but it was reviewer Alex Monahan on the 2003 Slide release, Harmonic Motion. The five young Irishmen (who are waaaaay cuter than the Jonas Brothers) will be appearing on Saturday night at 8 PM at the Philadelphia Irish Center. In Ireland, they’ve been called “the next big thing” in traditional music. Listen for yourself.
Slide will be ringing in the month of March. Take your vitamins and get plenty of sleep, sweeties. There’s going to be plenty of ways to be Irish this month. (In fact, you can sneak a peek at our special 2009 St. Patrick’s Celebration calendar to make your plans now.)
The AOH Division 22 is holding a Celtic tea on Sunday at the Firefighters Union Hall in Philadelphia. We don’t expect lace napkins, but we could be surprised.
Derek Warfield and the Young Wolfe Tones will be bringing their great sound to the Springfield Country Club late Sunday afternoon too.
You can support the Philadelphia St. Patrick’s Day Parade on Sunday by attending a fundraiser at Finnigan’s Wake on Third and Spring Garden in the city. Philly’s budget deficit is infectious—it’s left parade organizers about $40,000 short for this year’s abbreviated event (another cost-cutting measure). Philadelphia Newspapers CEO Brian Tierney has vowed to match dollar-for-dollar the first $20,000 raised for the parade. Paddy’s Well provides the entertainment. Next week, Blackthorn raises the roof and some money for the parade at the Springfield Country Club.
And, on the same night (get used to this), the Three Irish Tenors will be performing at the Colonial Theater in Phoenixville. Lovely voices, nice lads.
Mid-week, Irish singer Tony Kenny, star of Jury’s Irish Cabaret in Dublin for years, brings his show to the Sellersville Theatre (it includes Irish comic Joe Cuddy, fiddler Sarah Rogers, and some great Irish dancers).
Thursday, the Celtic Tenors are coming to the Keswick, and Kildare’s in Manayunk is beginning the first of four weeks of Theology on Tap, an evening with guest speakers on many aspects of religion, with a free buffet.
If you missed the legendary Finbar Furey when he appeared at The Shanachie Pub and Restaurant in Ambler on October, you have your chance to see him on Thursday, when he makes a return visit with The Boatmen. It was an amazing night, not to be missed—don’t make the same mistake twice.
And Friday marks the return of the hit Broadway show, “The Irish and How They Got That Way” at the Kimmel Center in Philadelphia. The Frank McCourt (“Angela’s Ashes”) play is an irreverent but affectionate history of the Irish in America told in song and story. We’ll have a review in the next couple of weeks.
Also, next Friday, Shanachie owner and entertainer Gerry Timlin will play your favorite Irish tunes and keep you in stitches at a special concert to benefit the Courage to Create Capital Campaign for the Montgomery County Community College’s Fine Arts Center in Blue Bell.
The first of the many parades is next weekend (Mt. Holly kicks the marching season off) and the activities start to ramp up and they don’t stop even at the end of March. Check our calendar and start making your plans now. Pace yourselves!
And remember to buy Irish!
