America:Maryland's new governor, Martin O'Malley, was finishing a brief speech at his inaugural ball on Wednesday when he was invited to take another stage in Baltimore's vast convention centre with his old band, O'Malley's March.
"I wouldn't want to hurt my gravitas," he said, before adding: "Give me two minutes." Dinner jacket sleeve rolled up to the elbow, he picked up his green guitar and played Bob Dylan's The Times They Are A-Changin', before launching into the Celtic rock that is the band's trademark. Then O'Malley introduced the Saw Doctors, who had flown in from Ireland to perform at the ball, joining them on stage for the last part of their set.
Among the 9,000 guests were dozens of O'Malley's friends from Ireland who came to share this moment of triumph with the most profoundly Irish of Irish-American politicians. (When I suggested to O'Malley a few months ago that he is the most self-consciously Irish politician in the US, he corrected me: "I'm the most sub-consciously Irish".)
Earlier that day, at his solemn swearing-in ceremony in Annapolis, O'Malley greeted Irish ambassador Noel Fahey and EU ambassador John Bruton before other VIPs, welcoming them with "a big fáilte romhaibh".
"I'm surrounded by the Irish tonight," O'Malley told me, as the secret servicemen who will from now on be his constant companions eyed the crowd pressing towards him.
The flavour of the inauguration may have been Irish but its theme was the more inclusive one of unity in diversity, a message O'Malley repeated as he stood on stage with his lieutenant-governor, Anthony Brown, who is black.
"We believe that multiculturalism is not bunk, that diversity is our strength," he said.
O'Malley's victory in November over Republican governor Robert Ehrich delighted Democrats, who control Maryland's state legislature and dominate Baltimore, the state's biggest city. The party's leaders, including House speaker Nancy Pelosi and Democratic National Committee chairman Howard Dean, turned out for Wednesday's inauguration.
The new governor faces serious challenges, however, including an expanding gap between state spending and revenues and an urban sprawl that is damaging the environment as well as the quality of life of Maryland's citizens.
"Some of the perils that we face - budget deficits, polluted waters, drug addiction and crumbling infrastructure - are of our own recent making. But other perils, like global warming, the global economy, global terrorism and global migration, are powered by additional forces - many of which are seemingly beyond our reach," he said in his inaugural address.
A day after his inauguration, O'Malley unveiled a $30 billion (€23.1 billion) budget that includes plans to freeze tuition fees at colleges and universities and nearly double funding for stem cell research - but calls for no tax increases. The budget slows spending growth but, without tax increases there is still likely to be a gap between spending and revenues later in his four-year term as governor.
Fiscal constraints forced O'Malley to postpone the fulfilment of some key campaign promises, including a plan to help school districts where education is more expensive.
"We know we are facing a budget challenge that grows in future years, that scary structural deficit. The first task when you face a hole like that is not to make it deeper," he said.
O'Malley's difficulty in fulfilling expectations is shared by Democrats throughout the US who won governorships and state legislatures in November's elections. Democratic supporters are clamouring for a greater governmental role in combating inequality, improving education and generating economic growth.
The problem is that Americans remain resistant to paying more tax and few newly elected Democrats want to risk their political future by proposing tax hikes.
Towards the end of his inaugural address, O'Malley suggested that it was time for Americans to acknowledge that progress may not be possible without sacrifice.
"For too long in the capital of our nation and our states we have acted as if our people had, somehow, lost the capacity to sacrifice and to make difficult choices. But 'to govern is to choose', and to harness opportunity and meet our security challenges, we must choose to take responsibility for our shared future," he said.
