Fair City Grass anniversary gig: report

Aran Sheehan reports:

The birthday gig in Mother Reilly's last week [24 May] was a great night. The evening was well attended by fans and supporters. Finger food was also laid on for everyone so nobody went hungry and it added to the congeniality of the evening. Fair City Grass played their first set, which included classics such as 'There’s more pretty girls than one' and 'Red-haired boy'. After the first set we were invited to take the stage for a couple of numbers with our emerging outfit, the New City Pickers, with Carey (USA) on upright bass, myself on mandolin, Conor (originally with Fair City Grass but now taken to the high seas) on banjo, and Eddie Walshe from Fair City Grass on guitar. This was very well received and followed into the second set by the residents, with Connor staying on stage to compliment Paddy with double banjos which was very nicely done with subtly different interpretations of some great numbers including 'Pig in a pen' and 'The old home place'. Andrew Basquille then joined the band on vocals for a wonderful version of 'Fly away', which was a real crowd pleaser. All in all it was a night of good old bluegrass with a great atmosphere, and well done to the boys for being the longest-running regular bluegrass gig in our fair city.