AN EVENING WITH THE BEST BAGPIPES IN THE VALLEY: WHISKEY GALORE - BY N.L. BELARDES February 25, 2005 7:10 am When Kenny Mount of The Filthies called and asked me to go to a Whiskey Galore show at Rileys Wednesday night, and there were going to be bagpipes, I told him that there would be an 80% chance of me showing up. He laughed, "I think I have a name for you. I'm gonna call you 'The Weatherman.'" Joking aside, I was not prepared to hear such an incredible work of art: Celtic music both traditional and progressive, and sounding like a mix between The Chieftains, the Pogues (Throw in some distortion, man, and there you are) and one of my all time favorite bands, The Waterboys. I still rank Fisherman's Blues in my all-time desert island top five albums of all time. If any band rivals those three mentioned bands, they have to be good; and Whiskey Galore is just that: damn good. Who would have ever thought that bagpipes could be played like that anywhere? I was whisked away to the U.K., felt myself hidden in the shadows of a Dublin pub, or a concert hall on a typical street on the Scottish Highlands. Kevin Briley, far out-mastering that KoRn bagpiper, clearly has studied and immersed himself so much in the culture of Celtic music that you would never know he was just your typical America Joe. He has a firm love and mastering of Scottish bagpipes, with his true love the magical and smaller, uilleann pipes. Kevin played them so quickly and measured, with changes in tone and texture on top of a consistency that takes human breathing to its most controlled depths. You have to see him perform. Mike Bowen's voice is as magical as the uilleann pipes, and carries the songs into rich layers of Celtic ryhthms while his bodhran percussion stands as the soul beat of every song. (Bodhran is a skin drum played with a bone) When most bands are playing a set of six rocking songs, Whiskey Galore jammed in a two hour set of songs that had everyone pounding on the table right along with the band's energy. Here's the set Kevin was kind enough to send me in an email:

hour 1
parting glass
the pig
molly and the cops
wild rover
lark in the morning
the gypsy
sliabh luachra
process man
pitchfork
county down
new irish reels
atholl highlanders
pumpkin
7 drunken nights

hour 2
black velvet
tripping
thunder
mason's apron
derry
donnybrook
brian boru-old hag
cead- irish jigs
galican and grumpy
health

encore:
atholl highlanders
mason's apron

Whiskey Galore will be playing March 12th at Lengthwise Brewery. On St. Patty's day they will be on the road to downtown Las Vegas: The Fitzgerald's Casino. Why not catch them, and then the next night, March 18th, see the Filthies at the Double Down Saloon? My evening ended with a ride in a ghost-filled van. Kenny drove me home, and by the time he opened the van door I was like a cat that had been trapped inside. "Kenny, I see dead people!" is what I wanted to scream. But I was gracious for the ride, even if it was in the mortuary's turbo van.

*Liner notes: When I worked for the Fremont Street Experience in downtown Las Vegas as a writer/storyboard artist making cheesy sound-and-light shows I worked right across the street from the Fitzgerald's Casino. Our window had a great view of the giant statue of Mr. O'Lucky. Each day the animators and I would walk over to get an ice cream or latte from their little attached ice cream/coffeehouse. Boy do I have stories to share. I've seen it all on Fremont Street by the Fitz: midget Elvises, transvestite Latino beauty queens, the congregations of 4th Street bums, cowboys, lost tourists, and the big fat leather Elvis who could always be seen gambling inside. In 2000, it was St Patty's day, and well, we hated the disgusting bathrooms we had to share with the greasy lawyers in the offices above the T-shirt shop near Po-Po's Jerky Store. So we would trek into the Fitz to use their very clean bathrooms. That year, the 2000 St. Patty's day potty journey, just after a downtown parade inspired this poem along with a Spanish physicist friend who's girl had died:

St. Patrick’s Day 2000.
J***** and L***** on the phone,
A touch of Irish in them.
They say “I love you” before being whisked North into the Great Central Valley.
I’m at work—Vegas springtime, sunlit—across from the Fitzgerald’s downtown.
I wander to the street to find a better restroom than our sewage closet.
Among the people of the street I go: old Irish men and women,
a fiddler tuning up for his drunken show,
green-headed old ladies bouncing to thoughts of Irish songs;
past a blonde selling green carnations,
men and ladies with green beer, face stickers of clovers,
and sickened gamblers in the casino all jammed against slot lovers.
And suddenly I think of Xavier in sadness over his mother’s Saturday vision.
She remembered verses and a girl,
And heard the very same.
He shoots lasers into infinity, Alhambra vast mind wondrous of Moors,
wondrous of the origins of what can and can’t be tested.
Physicist once among the stars in red-dimmed light of
fading galactic thought,
shedding tears into a computer.
Thoughts of a young girl beneath a Spanish sky.