The Saw Doctors Come to Sacramento

(From March 2012)

Missing The Saw Doctors

Back in the days when visits to record stores happened weekly, I came across a compilation CD of Irish Music cleverly titled Irish Hits, or something like that. As I recall, the CD featured some old school artists like the Dubliners, Christy Moore, and the Clancy Brothers as well as more modern acts including Sharon Shannon and a band called the Saw Doctors. The featured track was called Never Mind the Strangers and it got a lot of play in my car as I drove around San Francisco in 1998.

Long before ITunes and with an embryonic Amazon, Never Mind the Strangers was my only link to the band. The song is lengthy, with chummy lyrics, and an extended jam session featuring an accordion, tin whistles, and I think a juice harp. The band sounds like they are having a grand time, and although the track wasn’t recorded live, it gives you a sense how of how they might sound in concert.

The Saw Doctors

By delightful coincidence, a few weeks later, I read that Guinness would be sponsoring a music festival in San Jose featuring some of the biggest names in Irish music. Scanning the list of artists, I noticed that the Saw Doctors --- below Paul Brady but above the Young Dubliners --- were on the bill.

My good friend Big Mike was a lover of Irish Music and was always up for an adventure, so off we went to the first Guinness Fleadh to be held in the bay area. It was a hot day in San Jose, but cool under the tent when the Saw Doctors took the stage, and when the first chord of their anthem N17 sounded, 500 people jumped to attention. That’s what people do at Saw Doctors concerts, they jump. For the next 90 minutes Big Mike and I jumped, sang, and witnessed something extraordinary --- the audience seemed to know every word to every song. The songs were nostalgic but not maudlin like so many Irish songs can be, and the band was having just as much fun as the audience. I recall a review in the San Francisco Chronicle extolling their energetic set and calling them “everyone’s favorite band that nobody has heard of.”

Guinness Fleadh 1999 in San Francisco. Big Mike at the far right.

The following year, the Guinness Fleadh moved to the cozier and cooler Polo Fields in Golden Gate Park, and once again the Saw Doctors were on the playbill. Big Mike and I brought a large group of friends this time and, by now, we knew every song by heart. While headliners Elvis Costello and Van Morrison delivered dour sets on the main stage, The Saw Doctors, armed with a fresh stock of songs from their new album Songs from the Sun Street, stole the show in one of the smaller venues. Following the concert, Big Mike and I bought a few CDs, and although the band did not sign the CD’s, they did make a series of esoteric doodles along the liner notes --- an exercise that seemed to amuse the band immensely. 

The Fleadh ran out of stout in 1999 and was no more, but the Saw Doctors found a new home in the heart of North Beach at the iconic Bimbos 365 Club. I used to call San Francisco the 33^rd county, not just because of its lovely pubs and soft Irish weather but more because of the high IQ of its citizens regarding Irish issues. San Franciscans viewed the Saw Doctors as a legitimate Irish band and not some PBS inspired collection of pretty boys singing breathy ballads while surrounded by manufactured mist. The Saw Doctors sing songs about what the Irish and Irish Americans like to talk about: the peace process, immigration, sports, the Catholic Church, the bad economy, and of course the beauty of Ireland. The songs are sprinkled with catchy refrains and choruses allowing the audience to literally become the 6^th member of the band.

San Francisco has a lovely building at the end of the avenues and near the zoo called the United Irish Cultural Center, and the old joke was that the center was not united, Irish, or cultural.  However, when the Saw Doctors came to town, every neighborhood seemed to turn out, even the toughs from the Sunset District. You could rely on the Saw Doctors to make at least one appearance a year in San Francisco, and Big Mike and I would always make an event out of it. In most cases, following the show, the band would adjourn to the nearest pub to meet the locals. They were always approachable and accommodating.

Davy, Anthony, and Kevin join Big Mike for a pint after a show.

One night back in 2004, I met a pretty girl at dinner before a Saw Doctors concert.  Things seemed to be going well and I asked her if she wanted to go to the show. “What kind of music do they play?” says she. “I’m not sure”, says I, “I guess you could call it Irish Rock and Roll.”  She politely passed and I had my last night of being a single guy at a wildly entertaining Saw Doctors show.

I ended up marrying that pretty girl and soon after moved to Sacramento where I lost touch with the Saw Doctors for a few years. Big Mike, now in San Diego, saw them a few times in Southern California, once waking me up with a midnight phone call from a bar where he was murdering pints with the band.

A few months ago, I received an email from the resourceful Amanda McGrath, who handles publicity for the band, informing me that the SawDoctors would be making a Sacramento tour stop on Thursday, March 29^th at the  Ace of Spades.

 Although the band has never played Sacramento before, there are a few Saw Doctor links to the capital city. Michael D Higgins, the newly inaugurated President of Ireland, immortalized in the Saw Doctor’s hit song Michael D, is a cousin of the Coyne Family, who own the historic Delta King Riverboat. The Coynes held a party in Mr. Higgins' honor the night of his inauguration in their restaurant. Speaking of food, perhaps the finest restaurant in Sacramento, The Waterboy, is named after bass player Anthony Thistlehwaite’s old band. The owner and chef, Rick Mahan, is a huge fan of that seminal Celtic group. 

Unfortunately, the Saw Doctors won’t have much time to sample the restaurants in Sacramento, as they have gigs slated for Friday and Saturday in San Francisco, and Sunday in Los Angles before flying back to Ireland. This current tour is their biggest ever in the states, spanning six weeks and covering 29 tour stops.

Leo and Big Mike

If you live in the Sacramento area and feel that your St. Patrick’s Day celebration needs to be extended, do yourself a favor and buy the Saw Doctors new album and a ticket to Thursday’s show. I certainly won’t be jumping around like the old days, but will definitely be there to welcome some old friends to Sacramento. I think Big Mike might be there as well.