Members of the band Laughing Jack perform at a past concert.
The band Laughing Jack’s name comes from a pirate flag and not comedy. But the quartet normally includes a bit of good humor in its concerts.
That often surfaces in the lighthearted tune “Being a Pirate” — all about how those wishing to gain the title of pirate must be willing to face the loss of a body part or two.
Flutist Dmitri Alano can tell you that audiences have a serious interest in such misadventure.
“It’s a highly requested song,” Alano said in a Republic interview last year.
The Indianapolis-based group will perform a free, 90-minute show at 6 p.m. Friday as part of the Bartholomew County Public Library summer concert series on the plaza, 536 Fifth St. in downtown Columbus. Organizers encourage attendees to bring lawn chairs.
The band — lead vocalist and Irish drum player Garry Farren, guitarist, mandolin and tenor banjo player Mario Joven, violinist and well-known Columbus resident Liz Bohall (also with the Columbus ensemble Cottonpatch), and Alano — is expected to present Celtic tunes from Ireland, Scotland and England and traditional Irish pub songs.
The group has played monthly at the Aristocrat Pub and Restaurant in Indianapolis, whereupon diners “pound their mugs on the table” to the beat of tunes such as spirited Irish jigs and Irish reels, which Alano acknowledged can chase away almost any semblance of the blues.
“There’s not a time when we’re up there playing those jigs and reels, and just smiling,” he said. “It just doesn’t happen.”
Members still would like to find a way to build a bigger following, not just for them, but for the genre that hardly has a basic broadcast outlet such as rock or country.
“The biggest challenge probably involves finding a way to get our music, which is not exactly mainstream, out to new audiences,” he said. “Garry says all the time, ‘Once people hear us the first time, they’re going to want to hear us again.’”
