Ah, the middle o’ March in Chicago. Time to warm our winter-weary hearts watching the first green of the season flow under the Michigan Avenue bridge, and hark to the distinctive whine of the bagpipes—like the drone of a giant hive of alien insects—on Columbus Drive.
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“Bands like the Rovers help to perpetuate the American understanding of bagpipes as a droning, cacophonous din,” says Currie, when the sound of a properly tuned and played pipe is “sweet” and “consonant.”
This is heresy, and it has cost Currie dearly: After 14 years on Celtic Fest’s citizen advisory committee, he’s out.
That strange threat never materialized—and Giblin denies making it. But a week later Currie did get a call from Megan McDonald, executive director of the Mayor’s Office of Special Events, who Currie says took him to task for “talking to people like that when you represent the city of Chicago” and insisted that the Rovers were a wonderful band. Currie says he told her he represents a committee trying to preserve Celtic music and dance. As for the Rovers, “I had to say to her they aren’t a wonderful band. They’re a show band. They play the Notre Dame fight song. And that isn’t what I got involved in this festival for.”
McDonald says that this year—as diminished city budgets have forced the cancellation of the Chicago Outdoor Film Festival, Venetian Night, and the July 4th fireworks in Grant Park—the move is a lifeline. The Mother’s Day date, she adds, will let the city use Saint Patrick’s Day to promote the fest.
