SLIGO LIVE FESTIVAL 2009

FULL FESTIVAL LINE-UP

Thursday 22nd- Monday 26th October 2009

TICKETS ON SALE NOW

Now in its fifth year, SLIGO LIVE has carved out a niche as one of the most relaxed and enjoyable music festivals in Ireland. The Festival will play host to an amazing line up of International stars this October Bank Holiday Weekend! Taking place from Thursday, 22nd – Monday, 26th October, this year’s festival will feature Martha Wainwright, Imelda May, Josh Ritter, The Saw Doctors, Frankie Gavin, Comedian PJ Gallagher, Wallis Bird, Jinx Lennon and Paula Flynn, Chris Meehan and his Redneck Friends, Tony De Marco, Oddsocks Revival, Oisin and many more.

Weekend Festival Tickets are on sale now at the amazing value of €75.00 per ticket to all festival events. You can buy tickets directly from this website and check out all events that will take place in Sligo over the October Bank Holiday Weekend.

Imelda May – The Clarence Hotel – Friday, 23rd October 2009 Special Guest Oisin. Tickets at €25

Imelda May Winner of ‘Best Female’ at the Meteor Ireland Music Awards is confirmed to play Sligo Live on Friday, 23rd October 09. Imelda has enjoyed overwhelming success with her debut album “Love Tattoo”. She has shared the stage with everyone from Van Morrison to the Scissor Sisters. Fans include Jools Holland and Michael Parkinson, and is enjoying massive public and critical acclaim. Imelda May promises to stun audiences with her seductive vocals and feisty burlesque live performance.

Oisin Kavanagh is one of the freshest singing voices to emerge from Ireland in recent years. He has just been selected from 2,000 artists to perform with Ten-Time Grammy Award Winner, Bobby McFerrin as part of his world tour of a project called Bobble, a musical interpretation of the biblical story of the tower of Babel.

PJ Gallagher –The Hawks Well Theatre – Friday, 23rd October 2009

Tickets at €25

PJ Gallagher has become one of Ireland’s best-loved comedians. Following the huge success of his role as Jake Stevens and many others in the hilarious and sometimes outrageous hit TV show Naked Camera,. PJ Gallagher is a Vicar Street regular, he has appeared at the Cat Laughs festival in Kilkenny and Electric Picnic to name but a few. He is also a graduate of the Gaiety School of Acting. With appearances on The Late Late Show, The Miriam O Callaghan Show and Tubridy Tonight, you can expect to see a lot more of this brilliant, energetic young comic.

Jinx Lennon and Miss Paula Flynn – The Clarence Hotel – Friday, 23rd October 2009. Tickets at €15

Jinx Lennon creates a surreal baptist preacher persona in his shows and plays bullet paced acoustic and electro tunes ,slam poetry style pieces, and fiery duets with his stage partner the soulful Miss Paula Flynn. Jinx has been playing shows at home and abroad lighting up the bars of Reykjavik in Iceland, sitting on the back of a Greyhound bus touring the East coast of the US with his secret weapon Miss Paula Flynn. At home in Ireland he has played Oxegen, Electric Picnic, The Flatlakes Festival, Cathedral Quarter Arts Festival, the alternative Galway Arts Festival Project and the Spiegeltent in Dublin Fringe Festival and most recently the ‘Imagine’ festival in Waterford.

Martha Wainwright and Frankie Gavin – Radisson Hotel –Saturday, 24th October 2009. Tickets at €30

Martha Wainwright’s second album ‘I Know You’re Married, But I’ve Got Feelings Too!’ is both tender and tough, beautiful and brutal, and simmering with invention and confidence. Martha has toured her songs internationally many times, sweeping up acclaim and awards with every flight ticket. She’s made music with The Who’s Pete Townsend, Damon Albarn’s African Express, Antony Hegarty and Snow Patrol. With her brother Rufus, father Loudon Wainwright and mother Kate of the incomparable McGarrigle Sisters, she has a blue blood lineage in folk and roots music, yet her songs combine contemporary arrangements and heartfelt lyrics.

Fiddle maestro, Frankie Gavin will feature as Martha Wainwright’s special guest in a fabulous Sligo Live concert. Gavin is one of the genuine legends of Irish music. From his first TV appearance playing the tin-whistle when he was seven, through All-Ireland Championship victories on both fiddle and flute, sixteen albums with the seminal Dé Dannan, seven solo albums, his adventures in the realms of Jazz, Gospel, and Klezmer, to appearances with such luminaries as Earl Scruggs, Stephane Grapelli, Sir Yehudi Menuhin, and The Rolling Stones, ‘the prince of Irish fiddlers’ is one of the outstanding performers of the past thirty years.

Chris Meehan and his Redneck Friends – The Clarence– Saturday, 24th October 2009. Tickets at €15

Described by Hot Press as “the finest honky tonk band east of the Pecos”, Chris Meehan and his Redneck Friends is the perfect festival band embracing many forms of music, including Cajun, Western Swing and a large helping of Rock n’ Roll.

The line up reads like Irish music’s hall of fame with Chris Meehan on piano/vocal, Bobby Kelly (acoustic guitar/vocal), Francie Lenehan and Brian Harris (electric guitars), Matt Cranitch and Gerry O‘Connor (fiddles), Percy Robinson (pedal steel), Eamon Murray (sax and harmonica) , Ronnie O’Flynn (bass) and Mick O’Connor (drums). The core group is augmented by Kelan Walsh (baritone sax), backing vocalists, Mary Roche, Ana and Ide Leddy and guest singer, Michele Rayfus.

Reformed after a decade away from the music scene, the band has recently released a new CD entitled “Dancing in the Kitchen”. It is fitting Chris Meehan and his Redneck Friends play Sligo Live, as they made their debut in Sligo at the Ballisodare Folk Festival in 1982. Back again, older but not much wiser, they are the irresistible big band. We dare you to stay off the dance floor!

The Saw Doctors with Oddsocks Revival – Radisson Hotel –Sunday, 25th October 2009. Tickets at €25

After a gap of 17 years, the West of Ireland rockers The Saw Doctors topped the Irish Music Singles Chart with their punked up version of the Sugababes song “About You Now”, beating off international artists such as Pink and Kings of Leon. Back in the early nineties, The Saw Doctors were Number One in Ireland with “Hay Wrap”, “N17” and “I Useta Lover” which still holds the record for the biggest selling Irish single. The band’s first album, “If This Is Rock & Roll, I Want My Old Job Back” was Number One in Ireland for most of 1991. The Saw Doctors have built up a reputation as a great live band. They have toured in Australia, Canada, USA, Sweden, Germany, Holland, Norway and the UK. Paul Sexton of The Times in London observed that “if they could bottle the sort of bonhomie that can make an entire concert hall feel better, The Saw Doctors would have the medicine show to end them all”.

OddSocks Revival, just back from touring with the renowned Alabama 3, they have been making a strong impression on the music scene since 2003. A striking stage presence and blend of music styles has given them a solid reputation as a band who will keep the good times rolling! Together with twin guitar leads and powerful four part vocal harmonies Oddsocks Revival have certainly set themselves apart from other present day bands.

Wallis Bird – The Clarence Hotel – Sunday, 25th October 2009. Tickets at €15

Wallis Bird is the Irish singer-songwriter with the loud guitar and belting-pure voice. Bird is often compared to the young Janis Joplin. In her songs she fuses elements of traditional folk music, blues and funk with an energetic handmade rock sound.

Josh Ritter – Calry Church, Sligo – Sunday, 25th October 2009. Tickets at €25

Josh Ritter will play a very special intimate show in the acoustically enchanting Calry Church. Josh will play with a new string band featuring upright bass, mandolin, acoustic guitar and including his friends from Love Cannon. Josh will be reinterpreting some of his older material (Golden Age of Radio, Hello Starling & The Animal Years) as well as previewing new material from his forthcoming 6th studio album due early next year. Ritter, an American from Idaho, has truly found his place in Irish hearts. Recognised as a superb performer and songwriter, Although writing songs since he was 14, it was at 21 that he was spotted playing in Boston by The Frames, who invited him back to Ireland.

He had just recorded his first album and it sold particularly well here. He toured extensively in Ireland building up a considerable reputation and following before returning to the States, where he has repeated his Irish success. His five albums have been very well received.Josh has worked with artists like Ray Lamontagne and Joan Baez and influenced by the lyrics of Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen, and Leonard Cohen, and by Mark Twain. He can pack out large events like the Cork’s Marquee and Electric Picnic, but this is the kind of show Ritter loves most in Ireland, where he can see the whites of the audience’s eyes and this Sligo Live performance is especially at his request.

Tony De Marco – Tobergal Lane, Saturday, 24th October 2009

Sligo Live is proud to welcome Tony DeMarco back to Sligo for a weekend of great music. Tony DeMarco is recognised as one of America’s finest fiddlers. A Brooklyn native of Irish and Italian decent, he is among the worlds leading exponents of Sligo style fiddling. Tony’s playing has all the characteristics of great Sligo fiddling- swinging rhythmic drive, a wealth of bowed and finger ornamentation, and a high degree of improvised melodic variation.

Sligo Live’s unique fleadh like atmosphere of dynamic pub sessions and street entertainment combined with concerts, café performances, club nights and the world famous Fiddler of Dooney competition gives an intimate and personal feel where festival goers mix freely with artists and really enjoy the atmosphere. Choosing between the dozens of gigs is the biggest problem many visitors face over the weekend.

Sligo Live 2009 takes place over the October Bank Holiday Weekend from Thursday, 22nd – Monday 26th October 2009.

Tickets are on sale with an amazing €75 for a weekend ticket to all festival events.

BUY TICKETS ONLINE