Bagpiping on the streets of Bangkok
NOTE: this article is from 2023; for 2024, please use this link.
Before St. Patrick’s Day began, I booked a bit of time to play my bagpipes in Silom, the central business district.
Thursday, March 16, I put on an old green kilt, green cap, and an old sporran and went off for my hour-long slot on a bridge over the busy Silom Road. Start time was 5:30 pm so it was very warm, and the sun was right in my eyes for the first half hour.
The reason to play had two main points: to get in some practice, and to get more folk to know there is a pipe band in the city.
Bagpiping at Royal Oak
The British Club Bangkok Pipe Band started St. Patrick’s Day evening at the Royal Oak near Phrom Phong BTS station.
Bagpipers started about 6pm playing some good tunes, and then the drummers showed up later.
We played a few sets off and on until just about 8pm. We would have gone longer, but the bar had a comedy night starting at 8 (like they did Christmas Eve) so we finished, and decided to take a walk.
Finishing St. Patrick’s at Scruffy Murphy’s
After playing a few pipe and drums sets at the Royal Oak, some of us took a little walk – about 1 kilometer walk to be more accurate. We made it over to Scruffy Murphy’s.
They had a live guitarist playing some tunes for the crowd, and we were able to hop on stage to give the guitarist a break, and add a little of our style to the evenings entertainment.
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