After a long and fruitful weekend filled with multiple gigs and many many many photographs, I’ll have my processing hands full for a bit, so here’s a heads up to another gig pulled from the archives, Geoff Quinlan at Passionfruit. Unbelievable.

• Geoff Quinlan in Passionfruit Theatre // blog entry » // photo gallery »
• Skinsize Kings in Passionfruit Theatre // blog entry » // photo gallery »

More to come…

• Band
• Band Musician
• Solo Artist
• Venue
• Events
• Individual Gigs

… just to help locate anything you may find interesting. If you happen to see a photo in my archive of someone you know or recognise and I haven’t labeled it, please let me know.

I’d love to keep the archives as consistent and documented as possible, so it may better serve as a resource for the music community here in the midlands.

It’s not often that a band will surprise me.

Its a rarity when I don’t truly enjoy myself at a gig, the energy of live music is always enough to turn anyone’s bad mood around. Last Friday however, when midlands-based band Crimson played an A.M.P. sponsored gig in Bar Metro, I was actually stunned. Firstly, by the fact that I had never heard or even heard of this band before, and secondly, by the comfort of the lead singer behind the mic. Fronting a band is hard enough as it is (believe me, I know…), but it gets even harder when the singer is playing a guitar on top of it.

Fergal O’Rourke on the other hand, lead singer and rhythm guitarist for Crimson, plays with such a degree of comfort and relaxation behind the mic, it was close to impossible not to be impressed. Having played around Ireland for over a decade, they are now coming close to releasing their debut album. Look out for their next gig, you won’t be disappointed.

Sneak Peak

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Their name is Critic Eyes, a rock band based in Athlone with not only bags of talents, but 2 (count them, two!) guitar-playing female front-people (as opposed to front-men). Their young, they’re writing their own material, they’re playing out, they’re female, it doesn’t get much more unique.

Normally a four-piece (with a drummer and a bassist), last Friday saw them playing an acoustic set in Bar Metro, part of an A.M.P. sponsored rock night. If you haven’t heard them live yet, remedy that quickly. It won’t be long before seeing them in a local venue in Athlone will be much harder to come by.

Sneak Peak

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• Spiderbaby plays Scribes // blog entry » // full gallery »

…AND I wrote a little function last night which will display a “New” icon next to newly launched sets in the Gallery, so for those of you who go there to look for photos, a newly published archived gig will now be easy to find. Check out the Gallery to see it in action.

And now, off to a full weekend of gigs, with two A.M.P. sponsored shows at Metro and The Stables featuring Critic Eyes, Shawn Allen, JP13, Black Satellite, and Crimson, as well as a highly anticipated traveling artist playing at the Passionfruit tonight, Emer Dunne.

I’ll go ahead and confess that I have about 30 old gigs sitting on my hard drive waiting to be published. This is of course in conjunction with the upcoming gigs that will be shot and published as well. Since both the old and the new deserve to be featured, I’m changing my plan of attack.

Each week, or hopefully twice a week, in between each new gig I post, I’m publishing one (or two) from the archives as well. While some of these bands are no longer together, we all know how much we love to reminisce. To keep the gig info intact though, I’m post-dating their entries, so when an archived gig gets published, it will not pop-up at the top of the blog, it will sync with the rest of the gigs that occurred around it. If you scroll down, you’ll notice new entries appearing in the list that were not there before.

Just to keep you up to date with what’s recently been published which you may not have noticed, here’s a list:

• Dead Mans Hand in Metro // blog entry » // full gallery »
• Sofa King Cool in Bar Metro // blog entry » // full gallery »
• The Rocket Queens - R.I.P. // blog entry » // full gallery »

More coming up - Hickory Wind, The Henshaw Family, Bill Coleman, Spiderbaby, Periah, Jimi Cullen and many others…

An additional set of Sean Lightholder playing the Passionfruit Theatre in Athlone.

Sneak Peek

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In addition, I just received word from Hickory Wind that they are booked into the PassionFruit this friday, so while you’re waiting for last weekends photos to be released, gear up for an entertaining group of lads this Friday, you won’t want to miss the show.

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Recently, singer-songwriter Sean Lightholder, normally of Kerbside, entertained a packed house in a supporting solo gig for Robert Sarazin Blake at the Passionfruit Theatre in Athlone. A new black-box venue, Passionfruit often hosts local original and up-and-coming acts as well as touring artists traveling through Ireland. His story-telling songs with a theatrical performing style made for a refreshingly different show, and it’s not just because he’s my husband. :)

Sneak Peek

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