áthas with Peter Yarrow, November 16, 2009
áthas was about a year-and-a-half into our weekly Sunday night residency at Brocach Irish Pub on November 15, 2016. By that time we were attracting decent crowds of people interested in listening to live music while enjoying some fine food and libations. That evening we had invited Amy's cousin, Jonathan Richter of Supermassive Studios, to shoot some footage for what would eventually become our Drowsy Maggie video.
As we played some tunes, we noticed a table of two couples were paying particular attention to the music. At times some of them approached closer to where we were playing in front of the fire place to snap some photos. Afterwards, and before we headed out to shoot more for the video, we struck up a conversation with them. One of the group, Peter, was a musician in from New York for a concert at the Jewish Community Center the next night. One of their group gave Amy a business card before we left and said that Peter wanted us to play with him at his concert. Cool! Off we went to shoot more for the video.
Amy and her mom with Peter
After we wrapped up shooting the video, I got a call from Amy. "We need to do this gig -- that was Peter Yarrow from Peter, Paul, and Mary!" A friend had looked up his information while we were filming. Talk about serendipity! We all rearranged our schedules to make it happen.
The next night was magical. We met up with Peter early during his soundcheck to go over some music. We ran through a version of "Whiskey in the Jar" until Peter remembered his audience for the evening: a group of kids to coincide with a newly published children's book. Peter walked us through some of his classics and a few Irish songs he'd picked up over the years, and we all put together some quick arrangements.
Peter was amazing and fun to work with. He was a joy to behold when he brought up a group of kids to sing a few numbers with us, including "Puff the Magic Dragon." It was a joy to spend the evening playing music and listening to Peter's stories, and we're super grateful that he took the time to work with a little Irish trio he'd met just the night before.
