Pub Crawl @ Joe's Pub, Baby Steps with a Little Help from the Pub Hub

"Sometimes you just want to go where everyone knows your name…"  Rory O'Malley, Tony & Drama Desk Award winner, put to music his maudlin life story at Joe' Pub.  Much in keeping with Frank McCort's Pulitzer winning autobio., Rory's shares his humble upbringing through the honest, rose colored eyes of child who felt loved & protected.  He gives heartfelt thanks to his devoted hardworking mother & supportive extended Irish family & community.  Amongst the intimate & comfortable nightclub (which included Nathan Lane) Rory shares (perhaps T.M.I.) his coming of age story.  "I'm from the greatest city in the world, Cleveland, OH.  I fulfilled my dreams of one day moving to NYC & performing on B'wy."  His bantering narrative tells of his Irish Band of Brotherly love, his devoted, adoptive father who died of aids, meeting his birthfather who abandoned them and of his own sexual awakenings.  Thankfully, the Irish blarney is interspersed by musical numbers accompanied by a refreshingly lively 8 piece vibrato band that included a jaunty violist & banjo player.  However, one song sounded much like the other except for a Van Morrison number.  Rory's high-spirited performance included a little Irish jigging and vintate footage of the good ole' pub hub.  Do you need to be Irish to love this show?  It would help.  I'd be full of blarney if I said I was deeply moved by PUB CRAWL.  I will say I was charmed.