Everyone has his/her own special St. Patrick’s Day rituals—and limits, or lack thereof—and Murfreesboro is filled with venues and bars to carry out those rituals. But the Murfreesboro Pulse’s pick for the night is The Boro, where The Secret Commonwealth will be performing a St. Patrick’s Day set for the nineteenth year in a row. This show will stream live on mindcoup.com. Below, Troy Guinn, one of the founding members of the five-piece, explains how the whole tradition began.
How did the band’s first St. Patty’s Day show at The Boro come about?
Our very first gig was actually at a St. Patrick’s Day party at Nottingham Apartments in Murfreesboro in 1993. We really didn’t even have any plans at that time to continue as a regular band, but all our friends encouraged us to keep playing. So we played a couple of open mic nights at The Boro, and then started to get our own shows there. So by the next St. Pat’s Day, I think we were the obvious choice for The Boro; Celtic bands don’t exactly turn up on every corner, so I think they wanted to lock us down [laughs].
Why did it become tradition?
Celtic music really lends itself to tradition. Celtic bands, more than any other kind I think, like to have a place to call home. The question arises from time to time about trying something different, but at the end of the day, it just feels good to be finding ourselves at The Boro again, seeing that we’ve all survived to another St. Pat’s and have kept this unlikely band together. As for The Boro, I guess they would say they’ve been happy with the business we’ve brought ’em [laughs].
Does any particular March 17th over the years stand out as a crazy show?
I remember some real marathons, when we’d start playing around 9 p.m. and be wrapping up at close to two in the morning . . . four-hour shows! I also remember a year when we played a St. Pat’s show in Nashville during the day and then rushed up to Murfreesboro to play The Boro, and it poured rain all day. I only remember getting drenched during each load-in and load-out, and yet somehow managed not to catch some deathly illness. But even that year was a blast! There have been years when St. Pat’s has been in the middle of the week, during Spring Break, with lousy weather, and we’ve all said, “Well, we’ll probably have a smaller crowd this time,” and then the place still ends up packed to the gills. Everyone’s Irish on St. Patrick’s Day!
Why do you think The Secret Commonwealth has endured so long?
It has a lot to do with the nature of Celtic music itself. Look how long it’s endured, without ever being a fad or a nationwide sensation. It’s just constant, timeless, speaks to people’s emotions and at its heart, it’s joyful and fun. For me, I would walk away from it if I ever lost interest, but next year will be our twentieth anniversary, and I still feel excited about the music, about the album we’re working on and the lineup of fine musicians we have!
What are your plans for this upcoming show?
Some years, we’ve had opening bands, and some years we haven’t, but this year should be a great time, because our opening band is The Get Reels, a Celtic band that features our current fiddler, Rebecca Waine. They are young folk and remind me a lot of us when we started. They look to us as old wizened Celtic music warriors, and I suppose we are [laughs]. But both bands on one bill should be a helluva night for St. Pat’s revelers. Best of all, St. Pat’s falls on a Saturday this year! What could be better?
The really big news about this year is that the show will be streamed live on mindcoup.com. That will be really great news for our fans and friends that have since moved away and miss the old Boro shows. They’ll be able to tune it in over the internet.
