I am going to be in Boston Thursday 9/20 and Friday 9/21….looking for good visitor friendly sessions. All the Boston sessions are listed as shut down per this site, which I find really, really hard to believe.
What are my options for those nights? We’re staying at Courtyard by Marriott Downtown (275 Tremont St), so anything downtown would be grand but if I can Uber there…that would work too if not too far away.
Thanks,
Eric
Hi Eric, if you add those dates as a trip to Boston you’ll be able to see what sessions (and events) are on during that time, as well as who is nearby:
https://thesession.org/trips/add
See this discussion from just two months ago.
https://thesession.org/discussions/42258
The dustywindows website appears to be kaput.
I wasn’t aware of that feature Jeremy! Cool.
So, are the Irish Cultural Center Sessions still on Friday nights? It’s an old listing, and I didn’t see them listed on the venues website.
O’Neill’s looks promising. Off to Google map my hotel to there.
Still open for any other locations.
Damn… O’Neill’s is too far out. I will be carless by that point. Same with the Irish Cultural Center.
So, I am hoping for anything downtown Thursday or Friday. Or, Monday or Tuesday night in Provincetownor around there (I will have wheels at that point).
Well, the Burren may work. Never played at an amplified session before…not that I being amped, but that’s usually reserved for my band. May show up there and see what’s up.
Thursdays and Fridays are hard nights to find music in Boston these days. Your best bet is probably to call the Burren or Druid. These will be paid gigs, but you might be able to sit in if you are polite and listen for a bit to see if you will fit in. I think there may be a session at the Burren on Friday nights, but again you should use your best judgement on if it’s open or not.
There is an open mic at the Canadian American in Watertown on Friday nights. I’ve never been, but apparently there are occasionally tunes.
Thanks Thady!
I was in Boston earlier this year — could not find a session. I too was surprised by that, there’s a big Irish immigrant population. But much more activity in New York and DC. I ran into a musician in a pub who said the scene is very professional, Berklee grads looking for work, not a lot of amateurs who just play for fun. Not sure I believe that, but there are lots of pubs, nominally Irish, many with live music and yet it is surprisingly hard to find a session.
Sounds very Dublin-like. Truly weird to me…I have played so many good, truly open sessions in NYC, Chicago, Baltimore, KC, San Diego, etc. The paid session scene just is weird to me.