Date: June 26th 2014
Opening Band: Gaelic Storm

Carbon Leaf and Gaelic Storm played in New York City Thursday night. The night was beautiful and so was the scenery. Watermark Bar is located right on Pier 15 at South Street Seaport, so you can see the Brooklyn Bridge and the East River. Having these two bands playing together in such an awesome spot certainly made for an even better show!

I’ve been listening to Gaelic Storm for over 10 years but believe it or not, this was the first time I saw them perform live. I have no idea why I never got a chance to see them live yet but just never happened. They were excellent live and I always heard they were a fun live band. The expectations certainly held up!

The band played “Raised on Black & Tans” I believe and then went into “Scalliwag.” I’m not familiar with their newer albums as much as their earlier stuff but still highly enjoyable. Just like Carbon Leaf, each member of the band of Gaelic Storm is very talented. Patrick Murphy was pretty damn funny too, and he certainly cracked me up with some of the stuff he was saying. At one point someone screamed out “Johnny Tarr” and he said he can’t stand that song and hates playing it. They then ended up playing a song they “never play live,” which was “Johnny Tarr.”

At one point, they had a guy with a cane dance for “Darcy’s Donkey.” Patrick was calling the guy in the cane a faker later on in the set. I was impressed with the sessions they did with a few of the members in the middle of the set. I was equally impressed with the Irish dancing from Patrick and Kiana. They ended up playing 1 or 2 extra songs at the end because half of the crowd was there for them. They played great and hope to see them play again soon!

Carbon Leaf hit the stage around 8:45pm and played for about 90 minutes or so. They always manage to make me sing and dance, even if I’ve seen them a bunch of times. Seeing them never gets old and they always put on such a fantastic show. They started things off with “Love Rains Down,” which is one of their catchier tunes in recent memory. That whistling part will be stuck in your head in no time. I thought “Ragtime Carnival” was a highlight for me, and the guys got really into it. I haven’t heard “Love Loss Hope Repeat” in awhile and they ended up playing that one. Maybe since we were in downtown NYC (“take a walk downtown…”)?

Throughout the show, the back of the stage had ESPN on some TV showing World Cup footage, and while it wasn’t a distraction during Gaelic Storm’s set since it was light out; once Carbon Leaf’s set happened it became a distraction. Thankfully Watermark Bar turned it off. Other highlights for me include “She’s Gone,” “Tombstone vs Ashes,” “One Prairie Outpost” and “Donnybrook Affair.” Obviously all the tunes from Indian Summer were a highlight like “Life Less Ordinary” and “What About Everything.” Carbon Leaf didn’t do their one-mic thing they usually do for this show, which was a disappointment but that’s okay, they still put on an awesome show! For the encore, the band came out and played the usual “The Boxer” and “Let Your Troubles Roll By.”

It was a treat seeing this show in such a beautiful setting, on a night that was perfect! Only thing I could have done without was the nauseating burger smell. Not a fault of the bands obviously. Still, can’t really complain too much about this show considering where it was and it was over fairly early.

Here’s some photos from the show. Check out all the photos at my photo site SkaPunkPhotos.com.

Gaelic Storm

Carbon Leaf