Irish Band JigJam Reboots its North American Tour with a Visit to Wild Rose Moon Radio Hour
It was the spring of 2019. The Irish Band, JigJam, was taking the North American continent by storm, and the Wild Rose Moon Performing Arts Center was lucky enough to have captured a spot on their tour. The band did not disappoint, for even on a Sunday night, the boys packed the house and blew the room away. Everywhere they went during the tour the crowds were enthusiastic. Then COVID hit and the tour was derailed. Jamie McKeough, the band's leader, went back to his physical therapy job. Another member returned to his job as a high school music teacher, still another as a school crossing guard. The band went on hold for nearly two years. This spring, the band, sporting three of its original members and adding a bass player and fiddler, returned to its tour and landed once again at the Wild Rose. Kicking off their set with their signature song, Hello World, the band performs as if they had lost none of their original momenta. Their second song, a cover of “Columbus Stockade Blues,” features fine-tuned breaks on the fiddle, mandolin, guitar, and banjo, and spotlights Jamie McKeough’s sailing vocals. During the show break, Wild Rose Moon performer, Jerry Mitchell, does a turn on the hammer dulcimer, appropriately covering some traditional Irish tunes, accompanied by Matt Scutchfield on the resonator guitar. Following a spirited turn of the game show with interjections from the band, the band returns with a driving medley featuring a jazzy arrangement of their own tunes, filling the room with spontaneous claps which can be heard working hard to keep up with the breakneck speed of the piece—which, fittingly, stops on a dime. JigJam concludes the show with their show stopper, Tullamore Dew, celebrating the celebrated whiskey that is created from their home county. The lyrics, call forth the retort from the audience, “So take me home and brighten up the day, from Tullamore to Boston out to Cal-i-forn-eye-aye – give every man, give every man his due!” You can catch all of this on The Wild Rose Moon Radio Hour, "A Home for Humans," on Monday, May 2nd, at 7 pm., on WVPE Public Radio, 88.1 FM.