Denver Celtic Night, 2199 California Street, Denver, CO (2025)

03/20/2025

Well all, it's the end of an era. The end of the month will mark the last Denver Celtic Night event at the Mercury Cafe, not because we won't have more sessions! But because the Merc is closing, and in its place will be The Pearl. We're still in the process of figuring things out with the new owners but hopefully we can point to the session's attendance and positive impact as a means to continue to have a Saturday session in Denver. That's a nudge nudge wink wink to encourage you to make sure you come out and play or listen this Saturday, March 22nd at 6:00pm.

But seriously, come play at a the venue that had a huge impact on many wanderers and dreamers over the years. It's 50th year of operation closes out an impressive story of community and support. Mercury Cafe has been a home to poets, punks, rebels, and artists from all walks of life. From Blink-182, Foo Fighters, Def Tones, Green Day, Goo Goo Dolls, Nathaniel Rateliff, Indigo Girls, and I could keep going but this place helped many an aspiring artist find a stage and get their voice heard.

I hope The Pearl will continue that tradition, but for now, farewell Mercury Cafe, it's been some great Craic.

02/20/2025

Here we go again! Mercury Cafe time this Saturday, Feb 22!

This is our standard Slow/Reg session. 6:00pm for the slow one, 7:00pm for the fast one. I will actually be out this week, but John Hammer has graciously offered to host for the evening, and will be leading folks in a rendition of “Merrily Kissed the Quaker” and you may have to remind him, because the whole slow session learning things is something new to most folks and he might forget.

A few other things going on:

Blarney on Belmar, Saturday March 8th - https://www.eventbrite.com/e/downtown-lakewood-blarney-on-belmar-tickets-1221606751679

Pre-game your St. Paddy’s day! Also see The Elders play! Also there will be a session there after the 5:00pm show! I’ll send out more details on that as I have them.

Loch Dhún Lúiche near Mount Errigal

Really, so much to see in Ireland, most of my photos are from 1 trip in a 50 sq mile radius.

01/25/2025

Session on Tonight at the Mercury Cafe! Slow Session starts at 6:00pm, regular session starts at 7:00pm. Singers welcome at the Regular session! I think there's an event link too, let me find that...

https://www.facebook.com/share/1GSr7Cxiea/

01/22/2025

OMG its like almost 4th Saturday. Here’s a few days notice to come out and play at the Mercury Cafe, this Saturday! I even rhymed that! Totally intentionally!

This is our standard Slow/Reg session. 6:00pm for the slow one, 7:00pm for the regular one. Since I totally spaced in advance, I will be leading a well known and oft played jig called “I buried my wife and danced on her grave”. I’ve heard it more commonly with the C #’s in the B part, so here’s some dots: https://thesession.org/tunes/381/42169 and if you’d like to learn from Martin Hayes (I mean, who wouldn’t?), here’s him going over the entire tune: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DnNBnhkn5jI

If you are willing to lead that session on occasion, please let me know as I’d love to have more folks from other sessions give it a shot as well! Also I am going to eventually want to go out of town one of these 4th Saturday’s and would love to keep this consistent!

Picture is The Sea Arch “Scoilt Ui Dhugain” on Gola Island

12/29/2024

Hey all! We had a lovely Boxing Day Concert with Down the Back Lane, and since last year we didn't get a Kevin, we were able to double up this year to make up for that.

Thank you to everyone who came! We will have our regular session today as well, slow starting at 6, fast session at 7 at the Mercury Cafe.

It will be out last event of the year, but there's tons of great trad music going on for New Years! Check out the Celtic on Market for Irish New Years, starting at 2:00pm and going to 7:00 pm.

12/26/2024

https://www.facebook.com/events/1310771783294209/

Hope you all had a Merry Christmas, and are having a Merry Boxing Day! Or Happy Boxing Day? Not sure how one is expected to feel on boxing day to be quite honest, but regardless, you should swing by the Mercury Cafe tonight to catch Down the Back Lane! There will be a session afterwards so bring an instrument! Tickets can be purchased in the link above.

We still will have a Slow/Reg session this Saturday as well. Trying to make that a staple. If you are willing to lead that session on occasion, please let me know as I’d love to have more folks from other sessions give it a shot as well!

Lastly, here's a lovely Christmas ConcerTreena for visual interest. Like the song goes... "May your days be [H***y] and Bright! And all your [Boxing days] be [at the Mercury Cafe]"

12/19/2024

Couple things going on this month, so going to try and do some shout outs that folks asked for!

First! If you find yourself in want of a virtual session, there's one tonight! Autumn Rhodes will be running through some tunes!
https://www.facebook.com/share/FSjwoASV1JJKPAfQ/

Second! If you are in need of something to do this Boxing Day (Dec 26) come out and see Pete Strickler and Down the Back Lane!
https://www.facebook.com/share/DtDvprd27cCMyQhV/

Third! Regular 4th Saturday Session at the Mercury, slow and then fast.
https://www.facebook.com/share/T25X1VmEN73yvvrE/

Fourth! If you want me to promote a session/event/trad thingy please feel free to ping me and happy to do so. The entire point of me doing all this is to help more people make more music, so anything that someone else is doing to forward that is worth talking about!

Hope your holidays are filled with good cheer and good music. And also may you avoid The Little Drummer Boy. Screw that guy. Seriously, who bangs a drum around a baby?

12/10/2024

Ok, so when I said we’d have fewer concerts going forward, that didn’t mean NO concerts, and turns out we’ll be doing our first for awhile on this Boxing Day! (December 26th for those who do not normally celebrate Boxing Day, which I assume is all of you…)

So in addition to our regular 4th Saturday Slow/Reg Session, we’ll be having a concert on Thursday December 26th at the Mercury Cafe as well!

Pete Strickler and Crew will be back to perform another Christmas adjacent show this December 26th at 7:00pm in the Jungle Room. There will be Tunes! There will be Holiday Cheer! There will be lights inside Pete's Banjo and possibly artistically draped across the rest of the band!

Don't miss it!

Advanced Tickets can be purchased here:

https://www.mercurycafe.com/event/denver-celtic-night-presents-down-the-back-lane/

There will be a session afterwards, but a regular one. Hope to see you all there!

09/28/2024

Hey everyone! The Avourneen Birthday Bash was great, thank you all who came! But we’re doing the regular session in September too! I’m going to try to keep it regular on the 4th Saturday every month going forward so we can build up a good crew. That's this Saturday, September 28th, at 6:00pm.

As I said before, we’re doing things a little different now, both in order to preserve what little sanity I have left, and also to provide more opportunities for newer players to get a feel for sessions. We’re not doing a Concert a Month, but a Slow and Regular session.

The Slow Session will start at 6:00pm, and focus on playing tunes you are gaining proficiency with, played at a more relaxed pace. Yes, you still need to have a decent proficiency with your instrument, but if you are working on getting a better feel for what it’s like to play in public, this is the session for you! We will also be focusing on learning a new tune per session, so something between John Hammer’s session at Swallow Hill on first Sundays and the SCTLS session Pete runs that’s just focused on learning new tunes. This month I picked out “The Black Haired Lass” https://thesession.org/tunes/378/1576?print=true (It also is called “Redican’s Mother”, and also called “Fisherman’s”, because trad tune names…). I’ll have sheet music and ABC notation if people want and we’ll run through that a few times too.

Afterwards, we’ll do a regular session. I really would love to gather up tunes that don’t always get a lot of play in the local scene. If you have a set you’ve been hoping to share this is a great place to get it out there!

Hope to see some of you there!

Also for visual interest here's a picture I took when I visited the di**le peninsula because its pretty and fun to say "I visited The Di**le"

07/26/2024

Avourneen will be playing at 6:00pm in the Jungle Room, and there will be a cover charge of $15. Doors open at 5:30pm if you want to grab a bite before the show.

Regular session to follow afterwards in the Rose Room.

Get tickets here!
https://www.mercurycafe.com/event/denver-celtic-night-ft-avoureen/
Or at the door, same price either way.

Also we’re coming up on 1 year of Denver Celtic Night doing stuffs, and it’s been quite a journey. I’ll be giving some updates on what to expect next year. And that there will be a next year! I hope, I should probably chat with the Mercury Cafe folks first before I make any final plans, but hey, it’s probably going to be fine!

The session starts at ~7ish and is in the main area and is free to attend or play in. If you want to play at the session, and are new to trad, feast your eyes on this helpful page of information! https://denvercelticnight.com/session-rules/

Denver Celtic Night

03/20/2025

02/20/2025

01/25/2025

01/22/2025

12/29/2024

12/26/2024

12/19/2024

12/10/2024

09/28/2024

07/26/2024

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