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I have safely purchased my tickets already, so now I'll share it with my friends. :-)
Al Stewart is going to be playing the Tupelo Music Hall in Londonderry, NH at the end of July. He's an artist whose work I've enjoyed since I was in college, and I never figured I'd have a chance to see in person. I'm a happy camper.
We're toying with going to a Tempest concert if Beth can get at least half a day off. They're playing a venue in Cumberland, RI on April 15th. It's only about 2 hours, so it's doable as a day trip.
Last week we had a spontaneous impulse and headed over to Portsmouth for a concert by Derek Warfield and the Young Wolfe Tones at the Ri Ra Irish Pub. It was definitely a good choice.
The music was pretty much what I expected. Warfield is one of the original members of the Wolfe Tones, an Irish rebel group who've been around since the 1960's. He parted company with them in 2001, and went on to do some solo recording, and is now touring with a new group of musicians. Their sound is much like the original Wolfe Tones., and since many of the songs they performed were traditional, or written by Warfield, the repertoire hasn't changed much either. I attended a Wolfe Tones concert in the late 80's, so this was a serious trip down memory lane for me, in a good way.
The venue was pleasant, going for a traditional pub atmosphere, with more upscale food offerings. The menu was pricier than your typical pub, but not outrageous. Most entrees were under $20, although not by much. Prices for drinks, both alcoholic and non-alcoholic, are steep. The service was good, and the food tasty.
My major issue was with their web site, which is pathetic at best. A month ago the announcement for Warfield said "Tickets available". No link. No information. I tried emailing to ask how one would order tickets. No response. So I put the notion of going aside as probably not practical on a weeknight.
The day of the performance I had second thoughts. I checked the site again. The announcement about Warfield and the Young Wolfe TOnes no mentioned nothing about tickets. I thought perhaps it had been an error, since the place is basically a restaurant, not a concert venue, and generally such places don't tell tickets. The web site said the performance was scheduled to start at 9pm, so we headed over intending to get there about 8:15, have dinner, and then sit back and enjoy the music.
You can probably imagine how pleased and impressed we were to get there and find that there was an unadvertised $20 charge for tickets, and that the show had started at 8pm, not 9pm. We stayed anyway, and had a good time, but it left a very sour taste in my mouth where the management of the establishment are concerned.
That wasn't the only issue with the web site either. The daily specials section of the menu is still running the specials from November.
And someone should tell the person who programmed the "Show me a map" option that 22-26 Market Square and 22-26 Market St are not the same place. The map option worked much better when I put in the Market Square version of the address, which was shown clearly on the page next to the "Show me a map" button. Lesson: if you're going to put up a web site with directions, at least click the link once and see that it works, instead of giving you six possible addresses Google thinks you might have meant, 3 of which aren't even in the right city.
So, if you're thinking of going to something there, you'll probably enjoy it. But do what we should have done: pick up the phone and confirm all the pertinent details with a live human. The web site is a pretty risky information source.
Al Stewart is going to be playing the Tupelo Music Hall in Londonderry, NH at the end of July. He's an artist whose work I've enjoyed since I was in college, and I never figured I'd have a chance to see in person. I'm a happy camper.
We're toying with going to a Tempest concert if Beth can get at least half a day off. They're playing a venue in Cumberland, RI on April 15th. It's only about 2 hours, so it's doable as a day trip.
Last week we had a spontaneous impulse and headed over to Portsmouth for a concert by Derek Warfield and the Young Wolfe Tones at the Ri Ra Irish Pub. It was definitely a good choice.
The music was pretty much what I expected. Warfield is one of the original members of the Wolfe Tones, an Irish rebel group who've been around since the 1960's. He parted company with them in 2001, and went on to do some solo recording, and is now touring with a new group of musicians. Their sound is much like the original Wolfe Tones., and since many of the songs they performed were traditional, or written by Warfield, the repertoire hasn't changed much either. I attended a Wolfe Tones concert in the late 80's, so this was a serious trip down memory lane for me, in a good way.
The venue was pleasant, going for a traditional pub atmosphere, with more upscale food offerings. The menu was pricier than your typical pub, but not outrageous. Most entrees were under $20, although not by much. Prices for drinks, both alcoholic and non-alcoholic, are steep. The service was good, and the food tasty.
My major issue was with their web site, which is pathetic at best. A month ago the announcement for Warfield said "Tickets available". No link. No information. I tried emailing to ask how one would order tickets. No response. So I put the notion of going aside as probably not practical on a weeknight.
The day of the performance I had second thoughts. I checked the site again. The announcement about Warfield and the Young Wolfe TOnes no mentioned nothing about tickets. I thought perhaps it had been an error, since the place is basically a restaurant, not a concert venue, and generally such places don't tell tickets. The web site said the performance was scheduled to start at 9pm, so we headed over intending to get there about 8:15, have dinner, and then sit back and enjoy the music.
You can probably imagine how pleased and impressed we were to get there and find that there was an unadvertised $20 charge for tickets, and that the show had started at 8pm, not 9pm. We stayed anyway, and had a good time, but it left a very sour taste in my mouth where the management of the establishment are concerned.
That wasn't the only issue with the web site either. The daily specials section of the menu is still running the specials from November.
And someone should tell the person who programmed the "Show me a map" option that 22-26 Market Square and 22-26 Market St are not the same place. The map option worked much better when I put in the Market Square version of the address, which was shown clearly on the page next to the "Show me a map" button. Lesson: if you're going to put up a web site with directions, at least click the link once and see that it works, instead of giving you six possible addresses Google thinks you might have meant, 3 of which aren't even in the right city.
So, if you're thinking of going to something there, you'll probably enjoy it. But do what we should have done: pick up the phone and confirm all the pertinent details with a live human. The web site is a pretty risky information source.
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