Dear Reader –
Sometimes you need a good day out!
The Big Thing
And you mightn’t even know you need it until you’re halfway through it and you can’t stop commenting on what a great day out it is!
It was a lovely mixture of the In The Lamplight crew and the gang of us who are looking after the Theme Nights YouTube channel. And the day was full of wonderful coincidences.
Rory drove most of us up - we stopped in Ballinalack (of course) on the way up and I bumped into the father of a friend of mine and then (amazingly!) another great friend home from Uruguay.
We met Joy in Dublin and headed to Vicar St for a reccie where we discovered that the production manager there is the son of one of our choir members (and his sister is best friends with mine)!
We checked out a few smaller venues for possible upcoming gigs and bumped into Ballina superstar Garron Noone getting ready for a gig in Whelans. While we were there the news came through that one of our big guest artists for the Vicar St show has confirmed that he can make it…
So good fun all round - a leisurely afternoon, a nice bite to eat, a successful trip to an Escape Room of course, and we were ready for the road trip home, where we got stuck into the last few arguments about who should sing what on the upcoming show.
A great day out!
Where else but Sligo?
Ken ‘Tonto’ McDonald was featured this week in our Humans of the Theme Nights series.
In what is certainly not your conventional route to becoming a professional musician, Ken tells of leaving the ‘safe job’ in the bank, a failed audition with the school orchestra and the coat stand that supported his first cymbal.
Ken has been a massive part of the Theme Nights and Teenage Theme nights since Day 1 and yet there were parts of his story that I didn’t know. Read it in full here…
What’s New?
VANESSA JOB: Rest in Peace Vanessa - you brightened up our Hawk’s Well days in your own unique way. I wrote a few words about Vanessa’s impact on the Theme Nights here.
WHATSAPP: Shows how much we use the app when we are thrown by two lower case letters being changed to upper case! You know which ones I mean…
VICAR ST PREVIEW SHOW: Limited availability for this gig - last few tickets here.
Finally…
The latest Theme Nights video…
The crew eventually persuaded me to do a current song! First one in Rory’s shed too…
Favourite moment? Seamie setting up his amp and asking Stephen for a ‘quick listen to the tune’. 60 mins later he produced this.
Oh and Emily’s not bad either…
Till next time - Kieran.
