Tonight’s Hootenanny at Pat and Mary Savelli’s basement Pub was a real blast! Even though I left about halfway through, due to my health stuff, I had a great time meeting people, playing and singing some rousing music, and even managing to get a bunch of photos while I was there. 🙂

The players, as well as the audience (although the audience members also sang, since this was, after all, a hootenanny!) were a mix of folks who the Savellis know either from Fin Tan, the Celtic band from Dayton, Ohio, which is one of the bands Pat is in, or from the Society for Creative Anachronism, which is how I met them.

The Savelli’s basement Pub is really cool. Not only is there a stage, there are even stagelights. Plus pub tables and plenty of seating for the audience. There was a really friendly ambience down there, well deserving the moniker of “Pub.”

Here we are before the music really got rolling. You’ll notice that beverages were flowing a’plenty. We had to wet the whistles in order to sing!

20180407_1943302118256658.jpg
Our hostess, Mary Savelli, whose idea this Hootenanny was!
20180407_194335-1126853527.jpg
Our host, Pat Savelli of Fin Tan and Bardic Storm, on the right. On the left, Ken, Fin Tan man-of-all-talents, who provided tonight’s rhythm section, on cajon and bodhrán.
20180407_194202-1697222237.jpg
Halle Snyder of Bardic Storm, on the right, and me.
20180407_194155336463812.jpg
Timi and Halle
20180407_1942211981393577.jpg
Halle on left and Ginny Beatty on right.
20180407_194302-2129489654-e1523158939538.jpg
Rick on twelve-string guitar

20180407_194345-11831056917.jpg

20180407_194350351730212.jpg
Some of us were sewing…
20180407_194430-1717834781.jpg
Ken
20180407_194510-1518151211.jpg
Here was this lovely, comfy couch in the Savelli Pub, and no one sat on it! 😛
20180407_1946101110826494.jpg
Maid Marian, whose accent reveals her origins on Long Island. 🙂
20180407_194644-2135113630.jpg
Reggie, a major Fin Tan supporter.
20180407_194839-1595867117.jpg
Fun was had by all! 🙂
20180407_1948091245118922.jpg
Pat gets wild and crazy! 😛

Then it was time to make MUSIC! First the ever-important tuning and arrangement of our music notebooks.

20180407_19534489043191.jpg20180407_195356383447138.jpg20180407_1956021298433795.jpg20180407_19561164780067.jpg20180407_1956411391243498.jpg20180407_1956571154301725.jpg

20180407_1957182146035970.jpg
I got Keith, on the right, to turn around for a snapshot.

OK, now the real deal. Let’s play and sing!

20180407_201844209518973.jpg

20180407_201857-2071499232.jpg
Pat and Keith on guitars and Ken literally on cajon.

20180407_201918307243359.jpg20180407_2019241768143456.jpg20180407_201949608908436.jpg

20180407_202007-1482779703.jpg
Halle Snyder, on the left, plays an acoustic bass guitar. Nice! Meanwhile Ginny Beatty lays down some mean fiddle licks…
20180407_202015-1993447401.jpg
And this after Mark, on the left, protested to Halle that he had NEVER played uke!
20180407_202025-1608024229.jpg
Pat  and Keith on guitars and vocals

The “audience” were no slackers either–they sang right out!

20180407_202038-1864573617.jpg20180407_202042-1035402837.jpg

20180407_202059-1748588598.jpg
The whole damn band, minus me (my spot was on the far left, beside Halle) and I believe that Ryan, of Fin Tan, came after I left…Mary Savelli is hidden behind Pat’s music stand.

20180407_202109478986229.jpg

Then it was break time:

20180407_195322-62500665.jpg
Ken and Timi
20180407_195415356955377.jpg
Halle looking gorgeous in her curls! ❤ And a glimpse on the lower left of my Yamaha travel guitar, which was what I played at the Hootenanny.
20180407_202138453443920.jpg
Keith with guitar, on the left, and Ken sitting on his Pearl cajon, hanging out waiting for the next set…

I left before I got too tired to make the hour’s drive home. I made it, safe and sound. 🙂

It was a really fun time at the Savelli Pub Hootenanny, with great people and terrific music. Mary and Pat put a lot of work into assembling a songbook of about 54 songs, none too difficult, but all ones that we wanted to play, sing, and hear. That is no mean feat! As we played, they kept thinking of new tunes that they would add for the Second Hootenanny’s playlist. 🙂

I hope that there will indeed be a Second Annual Savelli Pub Hootenanny, but also that the Savellis don’t wait an entire year to have it! ❤