John Byrne Band Thaws Out Cape May

The John Byrne Band thaws out this seaside town of Cape May next weekend.

Dublin born John Byrne and his band roll into town Saturday March 14th at Congress Hall’s Boiler Room. They bring a boatload of talent that sells out the World Café in Philadelphia only days before. The Philly folks shell out big bucks to hear John.
Congress Hall provides John and his band at no charge as part of the annual St. Patrick’s Day celebration in Cape May. Get that? No admission charge.

John Byrne wrote the song in the YouTube video above while hunkered down during a winter Nor’easter in Cape May a few years back. He penned the words to  Already Gone in his room at the Marquis D’Lafayette. The conditions he sings about ring true for most winters in Cape May-sans power outages.

John just returned from a trip to his homeland in Ireland to attend music conferences to hone his skills. His parents still reside in Ireland. Even John’s mom gets into the music with her Bodhran as seen in John’s Instagram feed.

I’ve written about John and other musicians from Cape May in the past. Everything from Singer Songwriter to the Jazz Festival in May has had a blog write up. Irish music in Cape May, however has always had warm place in my heart. Blame it on my grandparents who sat on the sun porch listening to a console stereo on Sunday afternoons blaring reels and jigs.

Cape May is delightfully saturated with talented musicians. Just visit the Mad Batter on any given Sunday night. It is amazing that we don’t have more anxiety deciding who to go hear and when. It is almost forgivable that only a hundred or so showed up for the Quiet Men Saturday night at Convention Hall. Almost. Kudos to the Fahy family for setting up a pop up store last night.

Next to Singer Songwriter-The John Byrne Band playing Congress Hall is one of my winter highlights. There is some great YouTube recordings of Catharsis and other songs John and the band have recorded. With songs like this the John Byrne band will surely thaw out Cape May.

That’s whats Cooke-ing.