Young Dubliners on Tour (so is Gary Numan)
Paddy steps off the ‘plane somewhere in the middle of America, thinks “Bloody hell, it’s hot; no wonder the grass is yellow” and promptly forgets that when he left Ireland - about fifteen hours earlier - he had been listening to Kraftwerk, Afrika Bambaataa, Tricky, and Gary Numan’s Tubeway Army.
With all motor vehicles looking funnily shaped, and no green grass anywhere to be seen, Paddy suddenly wants to sing Spancil Hill - even though he hasn’t heard it for over ten years, and he’s actually been to Spancil Hill and was totally unimpressed. “But Paddy you don’t sing”, Paddy laments to himself.
Four hours later Paddy is in a pub bearing the same name as his mother. It has mispelled Gaeilge on the windows, and paintings of his home town inside - including the building he used to look at from his window at work.
Paddy has been drinking something called Irish Ale, and then he sings, in its entirety, Spancil Hill, somehow remembering the words from a place he didn’t know he’d been.
The Curragh of Kildare, Biddy Mulligan, and The Leaving of Liverpool quickly followed, as Paddy instantly became a singer and resolved to one day visit Liverpool so he could leave it. Afrika Bambaataa and Gary Numan were never played or spoken of again by Paddy.
Three years later Paddy’s friend, Brad, visits Ireland for the first time, and with his tin whistle in hand the first pub he walks into is blasting out tunes by Tricky and, he thinks, something sampling Kraftwerk. On his return to the US, Brad and Paddy are never that close again.
I got word from Keith Roberts of The Young Dubliners relaxing briefly in Mexico the other day, that the Dubs survived the epic Colorado leg of their tour and will be shortly crossing back to the northeast of the country before hitting the midwest.
In an article in The Aspen Times while the Dubs were doing the Colorado gigs, Keith explained that it wasn’t until he arrived in the US that he actually started singing Irish songs:
Growing up in Ireland I was far more exposed to English rock and American stuff, Roberts said. Irish music was for the old guys in the pub. But when you leave Ireland, homesickness comes out in different ways. Missing home, he said he began singing Irish ballads in bars, something he’d never done before
Now if you’ve ever spoken with Keith, you will have noticed that he’s quite an interesting bloke:
Roberts’ plan before leaving Dublin was to take his degrees in politics and sociology from University College Dublin and become a journalist. He said after his arrival in the late ’80s he quickly learned through an internship at PBS it wasn’t the right calling for him. He did, however, find another way to bring the news as he saw it to the public
The current CD by the Young Dubliners, Real World, is clearly their strongest, and in fact is the Young Dubs’ second album in a row with all the same members, which might be why.
If you’re reading in Dublin in Ireland you can see the boys in Whelans on November 8. But if you’re in the Kansas City region you can see the Young Dubliners a little sooner, when they play the Weston Irish Festival on October 14.
Here’s a video of the Young Dubs playing in cleveland - Waxie’s Dargle:
Or you can see Gary Numan play at the Record Bar, on Tuesday, August 15.
See Also:
• Young Dubliners Irish Tour 2006
• Geldof: We don’t die of drought in Kansas
• Young Dubs on Celtic Music News Podcast #63
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