The Teetotallers At Joe's Pub

By Gwen Orel

It was musical enchantment at an almost supernatural level.

As a duet between fiddler Martin Hayes and guitarist John Doyle on Sunday night at Joe's Pub became frantic and yet controlled, a tidal wave of music burst over our heads as the audience cheered and waited for more, and it kept coming.

They picked us up and we went on top of the wave with them, going higher and riding it with the wind in our ears, we went on another wave, and finally we rolled into shore, elated and exhilarated.

The Teetotallers, the new Trad supergroup (which we previewed here) made up of guitarist John Doyle, fiddler Martin Hayes, and flutist Kevin Crawford, put on a simply amazing show at Joe's Pub (joespub.com).

The venue has been renovated in the last year and is airier now, with better sightlines. The tall booths are gone and there seem to be more tables.

Everywhere you looked there was somebody you knew from the music scene: there's Paul Keating of The Irish Voice; there's button accordion player/photographer Christy Mcnamara; there's fiddle player Duncan Wickel: there's Consul General Noel Kilkenny and his wife Hanora; there's piper Ivan Goff and The Irish Echo's Dan Neely.

Actually, those last two were seated at my table, against a padded wall and facing the stage.

The Consul General and his wife shared a banana split (it looked so good).

There were also unnamed "lads from Fermanagh" in the audience that Kevin teased, who roared and shouted, and clearly there were lots of folks from Clare, including the Consul, who cheered when Martin explained they had done "The Clare Reel, The East Clare Reel, and The North Clare Reel... there seems to be an abundance of music and a shortage of names."

But banter was at a minimum, because the set-up at Joe's Pub is two acts of 90 minutes each, and they keep to that like clockword.

So despite the seemingly sold-out house, the boys had to keep to the minute - Kevin even said at the end they had been told they couldn't have an encore.

They did manage to have one, but the concert ended right on time at 8:30pm.

Highlights included an incredible rendition of the slow air "O'Carolan's Farewell to Music" by Martin Hayes, which Martin said he did for the Consul General, because he had played it for him at the residence, and our very cultured Consul General named it and said it was an unusual setting. The air was hauntingly lovely, and it led somehow into the reel I described above.

John sang "The Wild Rover," not in the major key and upbeat setting we know it, but in a minor, pensive way, in a setting about Robert Cinnamond.

It should be in a high pitch, because that's how they sing it in the north, John said.

But though Kevin teased him, John sang it in his own register.

He also sang his own "The Arabic," about his grandfather's attempt to go to America on a ship that was bombed by the Germans.

Kevin shone in a set of tunes from his album "Carrying the Tune" (we wrote about that album here), "The Dear Irish Boy/The Hole in the Boat/Sally Sloane," with John, who plays on the album, and also in a set that began with "Mac's March."

Later on, Kevin and Martin played at Tony DeMarco's session at 11th Street Bar. Martin had thought he'd just chill, but it wasn't long before he borrowed Tony's fiddle. And again, we were in the presence of musical magic. Here's hoping these Teetotallers return soon.

Gwen Orel runs the blog and podcast New York Irish Arts