My current, multi-year New Year’s Eve tradition is a simple one that features a puzzle and Martinelli’s, not live music. But as I kept seeing all sorts of great NYE shows in the Twin Cities, I was getting a little buyer’s remorse. That’s when a show by Pat Donohue over at Midway Saloon in St. Paul saved the day, with his regular weekly slot of 6-8pm on Wednesdays that let me have my cake and eat it too.

Pat Donohue is a fingerstyle guitarist from St. Paul and is known to be one of underrated greats in that department. He’s been at it for nearly fifty years, with over a dozen albums, a Grammy nomination, and songs covered by country legends, including Kenny Rogers and Chet Atkins. His 1996 album Back Roads is as good a place to start as any for his folk Americana sound. Nearly every Wednesday, Donohue “and guests” (this NYE performance was with The Prairie All Stars) set up at the Midway Saloon to play their songs. He’s got quite the following, and the back performance area was packed with multiple rows of seating with every one taken well before showtime. A number of those audience members had shirts with a label of Midway Saloon and “Official Pathead”, which tells you about the popularity of this long-running series. Hitting stage leading a quintet (guitar/vocals, slide guitar, mandolin/fiddle/bass, accordion, and drums), Donohue was relaxed and ready to go. Immediately laying into that finger picking style, the band had a nice musical intro before Donohue started singing. It also gave multiple opportunities for the backing players to get solos and it set up the rhythm of the evening.

We got the first appearance of harmonica (it felt like a requisite for the style) and a humorous song about getting “the blues when I exercise”. Donohue was excellent in his ability to control the flow of the songs but with an ease and happiness to throw the spotlight to his fellow band members, though his guitar work was also excellent. That casualness only comes with years of experience and the band clearly had that going for them. Even the small breaks between songs showed some real talent, as we got the warm up to a little Christmas music with the funkiest version of an instrumental O Tannenbaum featuring accordion that you can possibly imagine. It ended with the band getting the audience to sing (I noted that the band did not). Just when you thought it was over, our accordion player took the crowd on a three verse version of “O Lutefisk”, which had the crowd laughing hard. The holiday theme continued with a rollicking (and thankfully a nearly vocal free) version of Jingle Bells. I think slide guitar may have been made for this one. It also ended with a yelled “Christmas is over!”, which was hilarious. Our multi-instrumentalist took over on mandolin for a weird Xmas version of “Mr. Santa” to the tune of Mr. Sandman. That these could work was a real testament to the musical skills of all those on stage.

Rolling out of the holiday section had Donohue back to some fabulous guitar work with the higher sound of mandolin in support. Those longer instrumentals were key to the success, and intermingling them really made this shine. A cover of The Times They Are A-Changin’ was a good ode for all those lost here in 2025. They closed out their first set with a last number that lyrically highlighted the individual band members. After a small break, the second set got going with a much more folksy rock version of Statesboro Blues, with Donohue leaning into those lyrics and some simply amazing guitar work. A classical instrumental with only guitar and drums let Donohue quietly shine before the band came in for the bright close. An accordion led cover of Put a Little Love in Your Heart was silly and impressive all at the same time. We had slide guitar featured both musically and vocally and appropriately, it was the most classic country sound of the evening with the Merle Haggard number Today I Started Loving You Again (great work by sound guy Tim Anderson to modify volume on the different singers’ microphones). Donohue’s set was quickly coming to an end, putting a pretty strong exclamation point on 2025. With several longer renditions of covers, Pat Donohue and the Prairie All Stars finished their weekly set and gave way to the other festivities planned for the evening at Midway Saloon, but I was already ducking out to get to my own New Year’s Eve tradition.