Dear Reader –
Plenty of memorable moments during Teenage Theme Night #27 this weekend, not least when I started into the wrong song! More below…
**All hyperlinks in bold.
The Big Thing
Teenage Theme Night #27 was just great. So uplifting! Three shows, brilliant audiences and lots of surprises from a new gang of teenage musicians. Here are a few of my highlights.
Firstly a big shout-out to the Transition Years. Usually for the first show of the year we might have four or five from this age group. Then gradually as the word spreads more get involved. But not this time. More than 30 TYs got involved from the word go and brought so much to the nights.
Special mentions to Mimi who embraced the spirit of the nights and got involved in as many songs as she could - and did a fantastic job. Sean, Ethan, Oscar and Lorcan who absolutely rocked Enter Sandman - the first ever Metallica song on a Teenage Theme Night. And Joseph who stood there calmly as I played the piano intro to a completely different song to the one he had chosen.
I figured this out after about two and a half bars and we all had a good laugh about it. But I wasn’t allowed forget about it, as Orla, one of our new emcees came on straight away afterwards and gave me a good ribbing about it. As she should have! She was brilliant all weekend, as were Clodagh and Saoirse - they fronted the shows with great energy, humour and thought.
It was great to see a new generation of horn players emerge and our 5-piece section did a fantastic job on Don’t Rain On My Parade, as did singer Anna Rose McLoughlin. Always good to see a few bands take part too. And performing my own Mr. Tee with Sam Purcell on the Friday night was special.
Graduates Joe, Mia and Eoin returned and showed the current gang where a bit of extra practice and experience can get you. Joe performing The Angelus was a particular highlight.
A huge thanks to everyone who made it happen. Especially to Dave, Ken and Keith in the band, Joy behind the scenes, Daniel on sound and Patrick in The Model. That’s it for 2022 with the teenagers, but we will have three shows in early 2023. Dates to be confirmed this week - you’ll hear first on our Instagram page.
Where else but Sligo?
My favourite moment of the weekend however happened in rehearsal before the show on Saturday night. There happened to be five new drummers on the show this night. Leo Kennedy was one of them, and he was on stage rehearsing his song - Adele’s Rolling In The Deep - with the band and a few singers, and nailing it.
Leo’s teacher and regular TTN band member Ken McDonald was sitting on one of the audience seats watching Leo with a big smile on his face, but behind Ken was a beautiful sight that I could see but he couldn’t.
The other four drummers (also students of Ken) were waiting for their turn at rehearsal, sitting in various positions behind Ken, each one of them mime-drumming to the song as Leo played it. Separately. With smiles on their faces too.
It was a weekend where our instrumentalists shone every bit as brightly as our singers, and this new cohort of drummers were a big part of it. Am really looking forward to working with them all again in 2023.
What’s New?
BREE’S UPDATE: Seamie is away touring across the Atlantic Ocean somewhere and so Gerry Grennan and Brendan Emmett joined me for a spooky Monday session last night. We hope to have regular guests throughout this residency and will keep you up to date with any news here.
SISTER ACT: Many of the crew who took part in our recent Musicals Theme Night are part of this upcoming Fun Company production. It runs from Nov 5-11 and tickets are still available here.
SO FUNNY SLIGO COMEDY FESTIVAL: Finally for this week, just look at this line-up. Brendan Tierney has been mentioned in these pages before, and is the driving force behind this innovative festival. All the gig details and ways to support the festival are here.
Finally…
The Elton John song I should have played on Saturday night. Not Your Song! Some great footage of an early iteration of Tiny Dancer here.
Till next time - Kieran.
