The setting is downtown Dublin, Ireland during the week before St. Patrick’s Day in a pub. A couple of kids from America sitting around a table drinking the native beer Guinness and shots of Jameson Whiskey and looking like the typical tourist. The pub that we were in was two levels and very busy. Most of the people in the pub were from Ireland, but there were a bunch of people from around the world such as New Zealand, Germany, and England. All of the people that I talked to were very friendly and asked a lot of questions about America based on things they have seen in the news.
When we first got to the pub there was a single performer playing downstairs with just an acoustic guitar and a repeater. After one of the songs he introduced himself, said his name was James and kept on playing. He was mixing in his own original music and playing some cover songs. His voice was very interesting, it sounded like a mix between John Mayer and Dave Matthews, he could hit high notes but his voice was a little raspy. Which was also very interesting was that most of the cover songs he played were mostly American songs such as Bruce Springsteen, and John Mayer and most of the people in the pub knew the songs and sang alone which was pretty cool to see. Overall the performance was good, we did not get to see much of it but from what we did see I liked it.
After that performance ended, another band started playing upstairs so we went up to watch them. For this performance there were two people in the band, they were James and Josh (it was a different James). James played an acoustic guitar and Josh played a small drum and a bongo for some songs. Before they started playing they were giving a background on themselves, and cracking jokes on the people in the crowd, which warmed the crowd up to them, which I think I a good move. The songs that they played were all cover songs; they did not play any original songs. The first four or five songs that they played were all upbeat, fast paced songs that got the crowd tapping their feet and clapping their hands. After those songs they mixed it up between slower songs and upbeat songs. They also took song requests from the crowd, but of you wanted a song played, you had to buy them a beer, which was pretty cool, and a smart way to get free beer. I requested them to play one of my favorite songs, Californication by the Red Hot Chili Peppers, which was a big hit with the crowd. They knew the song but I wanted to see how they would change the song and make it their own and how they used the instruments that they had. They changed up the harmonies and how it was sung but I liked how they did it, they put a little bit of an Irish twist on it.