Yesterday, I told you about the visit to the Vintage Cocktail Club, and the ritzy start to the evening. After leaving the club, we went to dinner at an Italian restaurant and then headed on to the Button Factory. I’d been dying for about 3 weeks to go see the Swing Cats – but tickets were 20 Euro. It seemed a bit steep – but when the offer came up for 2 for 1 tickets on one of the local discounter websites, I couldn’t pass it up.
Dressed up in a swing style outfit and ready to boogie, I switched from my flat shoes into my 3 inch high “dancing shoes” upon our arrival. It was about 7:50pm, and the place was already nice and full. The opening act was a trio of French girls – performing Andrews Sisters tunes. They did excellent covers of Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy, Don’t Sit Under the Apple Tree, and Bushel and a Peck. They were fab, but it was only as we went into the main show that I realized I wasn’t enamored of the set up.
The stage was great – but as you can see from the pictures below, the Button Factory had tables all over the hardwood dance floor – while the people who wanted to dance were jammed into the back entrance area near the stairs (this meant limited dance space – as only 2-3 couples could be there at a time and were constantly jostling with folks trying to get to the bar). And worse yet – they had a balcony with seating area that was almost completely deserted! (Had it been me, I would have moved the tables – opened the space closer the stage for those that wanted to dance – and had people who wanted to just “watch” sit in the balcony… but it wasn’t, so I made the best of it and danced when I could – while totally enjoying the music.) That being said, the band was great.
The Swing Cats are an Irish band that plays big band era music. Every thing they do is designed for Swing Dancing (aka West Coast Swing / Jitterbug / Lindy Hop) and tonight’s presentation was called “The Story of Swing”. I must say they covered everything. Starting out with some classic charleston, they quickly progressed through into classic big band era songs like Sing Sing, In the Mood, Pennsylvania 6-5000, and the Jungle Book.
From there, they went on into the Rat Pack (They also introduced a “friend” to help them out with some classic Sinatra and Dean Martin), keeping us singing along, toe tapping, and moving like mad – before progressing into Bobby Darin’s Mack the Knife and then their version of Stray Cat Strut.
After nearly 3 hours of their singing and my dancing my butt off (I had to switch back to the flat shoes part of the way through as my feet were done in), the Swing Cats left us breathless and concluded with a great rendition of New York, New York and got a standing ovation.
It was a great show (I do think 20 euro is quite reasonable for the band now that I’ve seen them live). If you want you can check out some video at their website – http://www.theswingcats.ie/ and I’m sure you’ll be hoping they’re in town too.
After this, we ended up walking over to the Gypsy Rose for a last couple drinks of the night (And a bit of acoustic metallica covers) before heading home around 1 am. Good fun was had by all – and thankfully, there were no hangovers – and only sore feet. (photo below- one tired but happy girl) 🙂
