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The Dubliners & The
Neighbours
Wroclaw, Poland, 01 March 2009
For a concert like this folk fans in Poland waited year
after year. Here you are - The Dubliners in Poland! Folk legends are coming to my
country - at last! I counted the days to this concert. For me and for all
of the shanty fans in Poland they are really a legend. We know most of their songs, many in
polish versions, many in original – English. Lot of Polish shanty groups play polish versions of
„Whiskey in the Jar“, „South Australia“ or „Wild Rover“.
The photographers got only a few minutes to take pictures. After that I
had plenty of time to listen to… The Dubliners. I sat in the middle of
the hall and concentrated on the music.
First impressions… The Dubliners are not as young like on pictures I saw in
O'Donoghue's Pub in Dublin last May, haha! Second impressions… many young
musicians of today could get jealous, as The Dubliners are so energetic and really
enthusiastic, especially Eamonn, who moved and jumped on stage like a rock
star.
They played many instrumentals eg. Belfast Hornpipe or The Maid Behind The
Bar. The last one sounded completely different than like we (my band The Neighbours) play
it on our new CD "Broceliande". Barney McKenna plays
this tunes completely different on his mandolin than I do - so I have to learn
and practice more even more!
Besides the instrumentals they sung Black Velvet Band and
The Spanish Lady and Irish Rover and of course Whiskey in the Jar. One ballad,
The Red-haired Minstrel Boy, was dedicated to Luke Kelly. Barney McKenna, the founder of the
group, played many solo parts and also sung a ballad.
We were in for a surpriise when they asked
us to join The Dubliners on stage. We sung two songs, I was so excited that don’t remember
the titles!
It was over then and people
left, but my friends and me from The Neighbours (Sąsiedzi) decided to try find
the Dubliners and talk with them a little bit. We were waiting patiently
for more then 20 minutes and had a nice chat and of course photo session. It was a very short meeting
between them and us, but for us very, very important. All our way home we still
reminisced aout and discussed this concert and the meeting afterwards.
I want to thank the band for that great energy
they displayed. It will be our motivation to learn more and more, and play better and better. Thank you very much
Dubliners!
Article &
photographs by Kamil Piotrowski, Poland
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