In the vain of The Beatles and U2, our bagpipe player, Lazlo, has always dreamed of playing a rooftop concert. His dream was on track to becoming reality until the “Green Blobs” swept into Juneau.
When Lazlo brought up the idea of a rooftop concert in June the band was pretty excited. Next question was, what roof? Lazlo hit the pavement and found Jill Ramiel, the owner of the Silverbow Inn and Bakery on 2nd St. Jill of course loved the idea and expanded it to a parking lot party and beer garden (hey, all the better!). Jeste Burton from Juneau Arts and Humanites council caught wind of the idea and put a massive about of work into promotion (thank you Jeste!). Mark Lukey ran around town and scared up equipment from Studio A and Mark Alton. He also found a soundperson at Alaska One. So now, with the band, the sound equipment and the beer ready, all we needed was the weather to cooperate. And…Well, it turns out that father cloud couldn’t resist a Fire on McGinnis show either. The week of the show was crap. Raining buckets in fact. Still, as anyone who has even planned an outdoor event knows, hope is the last thing to go. We watched the weather reports closely. Especially the path of the doppler “Green blobs” of rain sweeping off the Pacific and  into Juneau.
With the pitter-patter of raindrops on the roof, the band met at the Silverbow to decide what to do. When we set out to do this gig, we decided the cancel the show if it rained (I mean, jeez, who wants to come to a rainy beer party?). Then we learned of the investment the Silverbow made for this. They had purchased a pallet of beer and organized extra staff. With this in focus, the band decided that the show must go on! We did a shotgun band set up and simply played indoors. Lazlo and Yoshi started the show outside however, playing “Bells of Dunblane” and “High Road to Gairloch.” We continued the rest of the set indoors. We really enjoyed the crowd. They were fun, engaged and dancing. One dynamic we were not prepared for was the audience being quiet between songs. This did give us a chance to talk about the songs however, and the audience got to see some of the goofy band member interactions that go unnoticed in a loud bar. We also, for the first time in public, performed a new Lukey/ Defreest composition called “Chimney Sweep.” Despite the sound issues, the band later agreed that it was one of the better shows we have played.
On a sad note we later learned that people didn’t drink enough beer! It appears that we attracted bagel eaters instead? This of course is another Fire on McGinnis first.
So, for now, rooftops in Juneau will have to wait for our particular brand of Irish and Celtic rock. Meanwhile we would like to thank Jill Ramiel at the Silverbow (that’s clearly the coolest place in Juneau to stay and has the best bagels, pastries and cookies!) for making this happen. -FOM