I went to see them last night in Ottawa and I’m still buzzing. They were incredible. As it says on the back of one of their CD’s " they have enough energy to keep the electricity going in a small town for a couple of weeks".
Seven young lads, mainly from the south-east of Ireland with incredible talent. They played for 2.5 hrs with a great mix of Reels, Jigs, Songs (the singer has a beautiful voice for Irish songs). Tom Doorley, the flute/whistle player is very talented. He of course played a Generation and also a Low whistle which I couldn’t identify.
I saw them at last year’s Celtic Connections festival in Glasgow and I was well impressed. I thought the singer was great too - reminded me a bit of Christy O’Leary. As a band they are definitely up there with Lunasa, Flook and Beginish as bands who seem to have that wild Celtic thing going.
Danu came to LA this past year and we were lucky enough to get to go to a couple of concerts. Great stuff! They came to our summer Solstice Festival and taught classes in their various instruments. They also came to our local session and were wonderfully gracious, a great bunch of guys and fabulous musicians! LA Celtic Arts Center is a big fan now of course! lol
I saw Danu last year at the Hollywood bowl! They were in the line up with Eileen Ivers and Altan, It was a great concert! Danu is a very tight group. I think the Hollywood bowl is accustaclly challenged for celtic music, I like the smaller halls better, nicer sound.
Also all the good seats were taken by corperate fat cats, who left in the middle of the last act of Altan’s show!
Jon
Danu were on the TG4 (Irish language TV channel) programme ‘Geantrai’ last evening, playing live in a pub setting. Brilliant stuff. Also on show (I’m delighted to say) was the Desi Seery flute being so expertly played by Tom Doorley.
Hey, Jon, I wonder why the corporate fat cats get the good seats, but so many end up unoccupied? I think more artists should do like Billy Joel. His fans often beg for the worst seats in the place in hopes that he will have them moved to the unoccupied front seats!
IMO, one of the great things about Celtic music (especially IrTrad) is that the fans, not the record companies, promote it and make it what it is.
At the hollywood bowl, the Corperate heads have season tickets for all of the events. They just go there and wine and dine during the concert. There are bouncers checking ticket stubs, so you can’t wander down there… Also this was sponsered by Virgin Records. Altan is now a big name since they left Green Linnet a while back.
Such is life in the material world… jon
I think I saw IquanaGuy dancing in the aisle during the Danu’ concert at the North Texas Irish Festival last March. I was there dancing too. These guys remind me a lot of the Beatles when they were young. The flute player was most impressive to me. All were extremely talented. When is the next NTIF?
Yep, I agree that Danú are a pretty neat group. However, I must say, having seen them a number of times in concert, that their show is starting to grate on me a bit: The first concert I was ecstatic listening to the energy they put into the tunes, but after a couple more concerts their repertoire is starting to sound a bit repetitious. Seems like they arrange all the dance music sets the same way; start the first tune or two relaxed, then cue Tom Doorley, who starts the next tune playing solo at break-neck speed, the group finally ending up playing the last tune or two in the set together LOUDLY. I wish they’d go for a bit more variation.
That being said, Tom Doorley’s flute playing can still take my breath away, and the group’s singer Ciarán is very, very good too.
And Donnchadh on the bodhran reminds me of Animal from the Muppet Show. (Another way of saying that he’s not my preferred kind of bodhran player).
Someone above mentioned the Cherish the Ladies connection. This isn’t there anymore, since the band’s old fiddler, Jesse, left the band last fall.
