For me, St. Paddy's Day is about the Irish culture in America, not necessarily about St. Patrick himself, although he was a great man. I've alread discussed some of the St. Patrick's Day contradictions, and I'll continue that a little bit here, while focusing on the music, which aside from beer is the best thing about the day.
My first exposure to Celtic rock came from Slade when I was in high school. The song was called "Run Run Away." Later on, Great Big Sea covered the song and the band from Newfoundland quickly became my favorite. I've seen them play in O'Dowd's in front of 200 people and I've seen concert footage of them playing in front of tens of thousands.
Great Big Sea is a great band; one that rocks when it wants to, makes the songs they cover their own and are still very capable of playing traditional Celtic music.
"Run Run Away" as I said, was first exposure to Celtic rock when I was a kid. Great Big Sea covered the Slade tune in the mid 90s. The video is hilarious.
The band has influences from traditional as well as rock, and is not afraid to take a rock standard and Celt it up a bit. Like everyone in the late 80s, the guys in Great Big Sea loved R.E.M. and even covered one of that band's most well-known tunes, "End of the World." I like the GBS version because it has a fiddle and a cittern, and it may be even faster than the original version, if that's possible.
"Lukey" is probably my favorite Great Big Sea tune. This is a traditional tune that many Irish musicians have done, but in this video, you can see just how big the band has become. They're performing this little traditional tune in front of 30,000 enthusiastic Canadians.
Great Big Sea, although not Irish, play great versions of Irish tunes and are a solid addition to your music library, whether you're just getting into Celtic music or have been listening to it for years.
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