Event Details

Flook & friends with Damien Dempsey

Thursday 17th January 2008, 7.30pm

ABC

Please Note: This event is now past.

No strangers to Celtic Connections, the brilliant Anglo/Irish four-piece Flook pull out all the stops for this year’s return visit, with the first ever performance of the Flook Big Band. Winners of the Best Group title at the 2006 Radio 2 Folk Awards, Flook are joined tonight by several of the guest musicians from their last two albums, Rubai and Haven with the one-off, never to be repeated line-up for this performance featuring Seckou Keita (percussion), Ewen Vernal (bass), Padraig Rynne (concertina), Colin Farrell (fiddle) and Damien O'Kane (banjo). As some of these artists will be meeting for the first time onstage, a night of fresh inspiration and thrilling ensemble fireworks is guaranteed.

Merging the influences of traditional sean-nós singing with those of early heroes like Bob Marley and Elvis, the multi-award-winning Irish singer-songwriter Damien Dempsey counts stars like Christy Moore, Morrissey and Sinead O’Connor among his ever expanding fan-base.

Subjects covered on his recent fifth album, To Hell or Barbados, range from today’s Dublin drug scene to 17th-century Irish history, addressed with Dempsey’s trademark blend of incisive observation, ebullient poetry and black-edged humour.