Pay It Forward: 2016 Grand Finale!

Jakob's Ferry Stragglers & Mark Dignam

UPDATE: No organized potluck dinner this time, but the event is still BYOB and you can bring in snacks for your group. 

Online sales close at noon, CASH at the door after that!

Since everyone who donates to a prior Pay It Forward show can attend for FREE, we need to move this one to a larger space. Bayardstown Social Club will be perfect!

The Jakob's Ferry Stragglers opened the PIF series with a SOLD OUT show but were not able to play outdoors because it was 37 degrees and raining. We thought it was only fair to give them another shot. And we sort of like their music. Actually, we love their music. 

We have been wanting to do a show with Mark Dignam for a long time. Now we are. Serendipity. 

Born in Ireland, Mark Dignam grew up in the adventurous North Side Dublin suburb of Finglas, His father was a truck driver, his Mother was a typical Irish housewife of the time, except she sang around the house – a lot. A noticeable vocal talent led him to dream big and to leave the neighborhood as soon as he possibly could, finding a very cheap (read - no heat!) apartment in an old Georgian tenement in the city center, at the age of 18. First, busking on city streets for pocket change and exposure, along with his friends, Glen Hansard (The Frames, The Swell Season, Oscar winner for best song for the indie movie - Once), Mic Christopher (The Mary Janes), KIla (Irish Traditional supergroup) among others; they quickly became the darlings of Grafton Street, a well-known center, of Dublin busking,; counting among their audience such luminaries as The Waterboys, Van Morrison, and Sinead O'Connor. Mark struck out on his own in the nineties, releasing the acclaimed Poetry and Songs From the Wheel in 1995. The album, named a top ten best debut of 1995 by Ireland's Hot Press Magazine, cementing Mark's reputation as a powerful voice on the singer/songwriter circuit. He's continued to release records, from 1997's In a Time of Overstatement, a stark collection of spiritual and political musings, to 2005's Box Heart Man, chosen as one of WYEP Pittsburgh's top picks for 2005. Mark has been invited to open for, or tour with: The Swell Season, David Gray, Billy Bragg, Joan Armatrading, Richard Thompson, Mike Nichols (of The Alarm) among others... Today, when he isn't touring with his band "The House of Song," or at home with his family, Mark is in the studio preparing his long-awaited follow up to Box Heart Man, "Re-Build," recorded live at Treelady Studios in Pennsylvania.

This is the fifth and final in our series of “Pay It Forward” events featuring all local music. This show is being partially funded by all the music lovers attending all the prior Pay It Forward shows. If you are a PIF Veteran and have made a prior donation to one or more of the first four PIF shows, you get through the gate FREE on October 15. PIF Newbies are being asked to donate $10. 

With the free attendees, we expect this event to fill up. Click the link above to register. PIF Veterans can use the "I Get In Free" clicker. PIF Newbies must click on the "Donation" button. No registrations will be available at the party, you must register in advance.

As with the prior PIF events, this event will be potluck-to-share and BYOB. Ages 21+ please, but kids are VERY welcome to attend with their parents. No donations requested for kids. Bring some extra $$ to buy merch from the musicians! Bayardstown has some seating, but feel free to bring your own chairs. The show goes on rain or shine unless it is an unending monsoon. There is a sizable shelter, and the stage is covered. 

Public Service Announcement: Collecting donations in advance and limiting attendance is intended to help ensure that the audience is truly interested in the performers and in respectfully experiencing the music. There is nothing wrong with hooting and hollering and clapping and singing and dancing when the music moves you, but this series of shows won’t be background music to talk over, promise.