Mundy & The Seamus Begley Trio – Tuning Fork February 24, 2017

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It was a lively crowd that came out to Auckland’s Tuning Fork on this Friday night to catch some Irish music by the Seamus Begley Trio and singer-songwriter Mundy. But one has to wonder if they were really there to listen to music or just make their own noise. 

Advertised as a co-headlining bill, the Seamus Begley Trio performed first last night at the Tuning Fork, requesting the the house lights remain up so that they could have a look at their audience.

I’m not sure they liked what they saw.

There was a good-sized crowd, but it seemed that very few of them were interested in listening to the traditional Irish music these three musicians were offering up. The group plays acoustic guitar, fiddle and accordion, and from the beginning it was very difficult to hear any of the music over the din of the audience. They seemed to prefer to treat the trio as background music to talk over. There were a few folks up front who were paying attention, but if you were more than a few feet from the stage, the music was virtually non-existent.

Bandleader Seamus Begley did his best to get the crowd’s attention, urging them to sing along, telling jokes, etc, but to no avail. These folks were here to drink and talk loudly to each other.

I was hoping the situation would change when Mundy performed. I was a fan of his 1996 album Jelly Legs and this was his first trip to New Zealand.

Alas, it was not to be. Despite Mundy playing and  singing much more loudly that Seamus and co, he was still being drowned out by the crowd.

After throwing in a cover of The Doors’ LA Woman, he asked for the guitar monitor to be turned up so he could hear himself and not have to play so hard, fearing he would break a string.

Sure enough, a string could be seen dangling from the guitar’s neck after the next song. As Mundy struggled to re-string his guitar, I realized that this was a losing proposition and bailed out.

Marty Duda

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