Andy Irvine 80th Birthday Concert, at Vicar St. Dublin Featuring: Paul Brady / Dónal Lunny / Paddy Glackin / John Doyle / Mike McGoldrick / Bruce Molsky / Rens van der Zalm / Nikola Parov / Ágnes Herczku / Chrysoula K.
Tickets to see Andy Irvine and friends cost €45 (including booking fee), and will go on general sale this Thursday, March 17th at 10am.
Andy Irvine will mark his 80th birthday with a show at Vicar Street Dublin on Monday, June 20th this year.
The veteran musician will perform alongside special guests Paul Brady, Dónal Lunny, Paddy Glackin, John Doyle, Mike McGoldrick, Bruce Molsky, Rens Van Der Zalm, Chrysoula K, Nikola Parov and Ágnes Herczku.
Multi-instrumentalist and trad/folk singer-songwriter Andy Irvine has maintained his highly individual performing skills throughout his over 50-year career.
Having been been hailed as “a tradition in himself”, Andy has been at the helm of legendary bands like Sweeney’s Men in the mid 60s, to the enormous success of Planxty in the 70s. Irvine and Lunny recently revisited their self-titled debut album for the Hot Press Up Close and Personal series.
Following Planxty, Irvine joined fellow trad outfits Patrick Street, Mozaik, LAPD and recently Usher’s Island. Andy has been a world music pioneer and an icon for traditional music and musicians in his time.
As a soloist, the performer fills the role of the archetypal troubadour with a show and a travelling lifestyle that reflect his lifelong influence, Woody Guthrie. His repertoire consists of Irish traditional songs, dexterous Balkan dance tunes and a compelling canon of his own self-penned songs.
During the various Covid-19 lockdowns in Ireland, the folk legend finally managed to compile the material together for his own Woody Guthrie album and recorded the results.
“I’d been planning to do a Woody Guthrie album for four years now, care to remember,” he told Hot Press late last year, smiling. “I got it together and I recorded everything, and now it awaits other people’s inputs. He’s my first and main influence. I’ll have to relearn all this material I’ve recorded, but I’m looking forward to it.”
“I’ve booked Vicar Street in June to celebrate my 80th birthday, because 10 years ago I played two gigs there for my 70th birthday with a couple of bands,” Irvine added. “Sweeney’s Man, Mosaik, and LAPD with Paddy Glackin and Liam O’Flynn. That gig was a great success. We put it together on a CD and on a DVD, and I don’t see why I shouldn’t do it again for my 80th. Then I’d be looking forward to my 90th!”
Tickets €45 (including booking fee) on general sale Thursday 17th March at 10am.
Revisit Andy Irvine’s 2021 Hot Press interview here.
(PRE-ORDER 4/3) ANDY IRVINE & PAUL BRADY on Colour Vinyl
€28.95 EURPRE ORDER
DESCRIPTION
180 gram purple LP in gatefold jacket with 12-page booklet
Compass Records Group is announcing the special edition release of the Mulligan Records classic ‘Andy Irvine/Paul Brady’. Long thought of as one of the seminal releases in the Irish music cannon, the album has been praised by artists such as Bob Dylan (who recorded Paul Brady’s arrangement of “Arthur McBride And The Sergeant”), Bono, Mary Chapin Carpenter, Liam O’Maonlai (Hothouse Flowers), and Radie Peat and Daragh Lynch (both of Lankum).
In 1976, Andy Irvine and Paul Brady, fresh from the demise of the Irish supergroup Planxty, entered legendary Rockfield Studios in Wales with mystic producer/bouzouki player Dónal Lunny and fiddler Kevin Burke to record what has become this Irish Music classic.
This Special Edition marks the first time the vinyl album has been pressed since the 70s. For this ultimate version, the ten track album was remastered from the original analog tapes, which were transferred at 192k/32 bit to maintain the highest resolution, mastered with the best combination of classic analog and state of the art digital equipment, and packaged both as a gatefold LP and tri-fold CD wallet. Both formats include a 12,000 word essay by noted music journalist Gareth Murphy (Cowboys and Indies – The Epic History of the Record Industry and Siren Song: My Life in Music [with Seymour Stein]), and include interviews with Andy Irvine, Paul Brady, Dónal Lunny and Kevin Burke, as well as testimonials from artists including Glen Hansard, Liam O’Maonlai and more.
“It was a golden age for Irish folk music and this is one of it’s defining moment.” – Mojo 5 star review out now
Uncut 8/10 review out now
TRACKLISTING
1. Plains Of Kildare 2. Lough Erne Shore 3. Fred Finn’s Reel / Sailing Into Walpole’s Marsh 4. Bonny Woodhall 5. Arthur McBride And The Sergeant 6. The Jolly Soldier / The Blarney Pilgrim 7. Autumn Gold 8. Mary And The Soldier 9. The Streets Of Derry 10. Martinmas Time / The Little Stack Of Wheat
Things seem to be starting to get up and running again music-wise, and what better way to return to gig-going than in the company of Andy Irvine and Paul Brady performing their most celebrated collaborative recording live?
Andy Irvine and Paul Brady will perform at the Waterfront Hall in Belfast on October 25
Robert McMillen14 May, 2021 01:00
THE boys are back in town. Yes, Andy Irvine and Paul Brady are heading to Belfast’s Waterfront Hall on October 25, to again celebrate their eponymous classic of Irish folk song and music.
In the same way that nearly every household in the free world had The Eagles Greatest Hits, Bridge Over Troubled Waters and, er, Tubular Bells in their LP collection during the 1970s, folk fans had the ginger mop of Brady and the toussle-haired and bearded Irvine look out at them from the famous blue cover with a “wait till yez hear this” look about them.
Indeed, the pair had created new clothing for the Irish repertoire, taking classics like The Streets of Derry, Mary and the Soldier and, of course, Arthur McBride, turning them into something that chimed with the mood of the nation as it was back then.
In May 2017 the duo decided, due to the album’s still immense popularity, to do an Irish tour of live shows marking the 40th anniversary of its release. So successful was it that it was repeated in 2018, taking it to sold-out events in Ireland, London and Prague with other performances planned for 2020.
However, a certain pandemic got in the way but 44 years since it first came out audiences are still hooked on the fabulous songs, beautifully adapted and passionately performed; so much so that, by popular demand, Aiken Promotions have just announced that the duo’s performances which had been planned for March 2021 in the Waterfront Hall in Belfast and in Vicar Street in Dublin are now being rescheduled to October. They’ve even added an extra date at the Cork Opera House.
The show features songs and tunes from the album and many other musical masterpieces that Andy and Paul have performed throughout both of their illustrious careers and, as on the previous tours, they will be accompanied by Dónal Lunny and Kevin Burke, both of whom were players on the original album recording, with Dónal also producing the record.
Tickets for the Waterfront gig cost £38 and are now on sale from waterfront.co.uk or you can call the Box office at (028) 90 334455.
The revised dates are Cork Opera House – Sunday, October 17 2021; Vicar Street, October 21 and 22 and the Waterfront Hall, Tuesday October 25 2021.
Andy Irvine News 