Some musicians perceive success as coming from little wins as well as from big triumphs. They’d prefer to sing a few songs under night skies than to headline larger venues, valuing the connection that the former provides and shuddering at the way the latter might require them to present themselves as something they’re not.
“I played a gig the other night in Bohola, in Co Mayo, the Village Inn, a local pub,” says David Keenan, the Co Louth singer-songwriter, whose impressive career has combined courageously honest, poetic songs with acts of self-sabotage.
“The regulars are in the corner. Stephen Murphy, the poet, is opening up. Lads are working on farms all week. We’re coming in and taking over, to a degree, so you can sense a question from one corner of the room: ‘Who the f**k do these guys think they are?’
“That’s grand, because it’s their place, but as the gig proceeds the singsong starts to happen, and you feel the room move with you.”
The gig then moves outside: it’s a tradition on the tour, Keenan says, to sing two songs under the stars, hail, rain or shine.
“So then we’re on the back of a donkey and cart, and everyone’s singing.
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