Sometimes, it just all comes together like that…
I was sitting at my computer updating the web calendar and my cell phone started buzzing. I looked at it and it said I had a text message. I don’t usually text much, so when I get one, it’s something unusual or spam. This time it was the unusual type.
It was from Dave Moore of Jackdaw and said they had a last-minute gig at Charlie O’Briens that night. Well, I was already working onn the calendar, so it went right in. And I decided to go.
They had a show that day at the Cozumel earlier and I assumed this was their way of blowing off steam afterwards. But I got there and found out they didn’t play the Coz show for some reason. I won’t get into it here in a public forum, besides I wasn’t there and only heard bits and pieces of the story. So, the Charlie O’B's show was a last-minute replacement.
Well, I was there to enjoy myself. No recording equipment. No camera. The only thing I brought was a CD of the TATS show to deliver.
Jackdaw seemed like they did want to blow off steam, though. They wanted to give a show that said “Cozumel, see what you’re missing!” And they did.
Do you watch the TV series The 4400? The one about the alien abductees who were returned to Earth with special abilities? I follow it an this past season, they came up with a vaccine that normal people could take and get an ability. If it didn’t kill you. But you never know what the ability will be, just some psychic mind thing you never had before.
Well, I felt like a character in the show that had taken the shot and got a ability – the ability to make people play music as long as I applauded. It was that kind of a show. They played their a$$es off. Long jams in the middle of songs, covers of unusual songs, solos, songs we hadn’t heard in a while. The crowd got a real show. This was Jackdaw at their finest, in their element, on their home turf, among friends and it was a show to remember.
And there WAS a crowd. Despite it being an impromptu show, only announced hours before, people heard about it and came. By the time they started the bar was pretty full. Yeah, we could have squeezed some more in, but it was a respectable crowd.
As I said, I took no camera, no recorder, so all you get here is my account of it. These shows you just have to be there, it’s half luck, half determination to drop everything and go, but it’s the best way to see a band like Jackdaw.
