Fell's Point in Baltimore (Night One)

3/10/2011

Thames Street in Fell's Point

Fells Point has always been one of my favorite neighborhoods to hang out in and listen to music. When I lived in central PA I generally got down to the area about three times a year but it has been about five years since I last spent any time here. The area hasn't changed too much, some of the bars have changed but all the old favorites seem to be here with the exception of the Full Moon Tavern. I had heard about the demise of my favorite Fells Point music dive so I wasn't surprised but I did miss her grimy floors a little last night. But I still found a pretty good batch of live music. Most of the bars that feature music are on Thames, the main drag of Fells Point that borders the harbor. This street is still cobblestone so it is amusing to watch the semi-drunk patrons stagger out of the bars and try to negotiate the street without falling on their respective faces.It had been raining all day in Baltimore and this made the cobblestone particularly dangerous. Luckily the rain slowed down to a trickle for most of the night so I didn't get completely drowned. (I brought a Slippery Rock hat to wear in case of rain but I hate wearing hats and in the course of the evening I lost it somewhere. I hope someone is enjoying my hat.) Here are some of the better bands I saw last night.

This girl was playing acoustic guitar at Ledbetters II. She has a nice voice but she sounds a little shaky on this song because she obviously can't remember the lyrics. You can't hear it on this video but bar patrons were actually trying to help her with  the words.

This was the happy hour guitar player in The Horse You Came in On, a great old bar with a great name. He kept telling us he had a cold but he sounds okay on this song. He later covered some John Denver which I should have caught on video for Dr. Quinn but I had lost my Flip camera somewhere in the pockets of my coat and missed the song.

This band was playing at the Cat's Eye Pub, another great old bar on Thames Street. The Skyla Burrell band was supposed to be playing but for some reason that I could never get the bartender to divulge, she didn't show. This was the band that replaced her and I gather that they were rather quickly assembled because there were long discussions between each song about what they were going to do. When they came back from a long break they chatted with the crowd for 10 minutes about what they were going to play. I finally told them to play ANYTHING but just stop talking about it. I pissed them off but at least they played something. Ironically they are pretty good and they were the only real blues band I saw this night.

This video was taken at the Waterfront Hotel Bar. This guy looks more like a grade school teacher than a singer but he isn't bad and he tried to cover Bowie although with  limited success. After this song he told the audience that he had just sang a David Bowie song. No one had a clue who he was talking about.

This video was taken in the Slaine Irish Pub, about two doors down from the Waterfront Hotel Bar. This band did a lot of interesting covers and worked harder than any other band I saw on this night. You can see the wind whipping around through the front windows of the club and the harbor is visible in  the distance.

All in all this was a fairly successful night. Fell's Point will never be mistaken for New Orleans or even Memphis but it has some great old bars and some decent music. We'll see how things play out on a Friday night.