Isn’t March a great month to be Irish at PSU? You get to celebrate Saint Patty’s Day, see Flogging Molly live in concert, enjoy the upcoming spring weather (perhaps even find a four-leaf clover or two on the HUB lawn), and see Eileen Ivers. Wait, who?

Yes, folks, that’s right. Eileen Ivers is about as Irish as Guinness beer, leprechauns and the Boondock Saints. According to The New York Times, she’s the “Jimi Hendrix of the violin“, which is why she rocked Eisenhower Auditorium so hard Friday night with her band, Immigrant Soul. Her performance, titled “Beyond the Bog Road”, centered around explaining the massive exodus of the Irish to Canada and the USA and how Irish music seamlessly blends into modern music.

Her entire band was very talented, and each person showcased his or her own talent in various solo sets. The best one was when Eileen Ivers and her drummer dueled it out, much to the delight of the audience. Eileen Ivers and her band put forth a foot-stompin’, dancin’-to set. At one point, Ivers also expressed her disappointment at the lack of space in which to dance in the auditorium. I was with her–during the concert, all I wanted to do was jump up and down and celebrate Irish music while reliving the rich history of how it evolved.

All in all,  Beyond the Bog Road was a very interesting take on the performing arts. It was a very personal, emotional and educational story about the Irish people and how Irish music managed to make it into the mainstream. It also happened to be a very groovy concert, as evidenced by the old people rocking out. You know a concert is great when some old guy throws out the devil horns. Heavy metal it ain’t, but this concert was more like an unplugged version of the Dropkick Murphys.

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