Dundalk trad folk seven-piece band The Mary Wallopers have announced two Dublin shows this Bank Holiday Sunday at The Academy this summer.
The Choice Music Prize nominees will play two shows at the Dublin venue on Saturday 3rd & Sunday 4th June.
The Wallopers masde a big impression on the Late Late last week performing ‘Eileen Óg’ and they have a tour upcoming to America too.
They’ve been described as “Dead Kennedys meets The Clancy Brothers,” while their self-titled album was our #2 of Irish albums of 2022, which I said “keeps up the decades old tradition of Irish folk drinking songs which bash the Brits, the rich and the guards while raising a glass of porter, while deferring to occasional solemnity on the emigration ballad ‘Building Up And Tearing England Down’.”
Tickets on sale 9:30am this Friday 3rd March from ticketmaster.ie
The Mary Wallopers bio
The Mary Wallopers – brothers Charles and Andrew Hendy and their friend Sean McKenna – started as a three-piece Irish ballad group traveling the length and breadth of the country singing & collecting songs. Their early live performances and their first five track EP – 2019’s A Mouthful of The Mary Wallopers – perfectly captured their sound and ethos, one filled with warmth, intimacy, chaos and enough sparks ready to light any fire.
When COVID decimated the music industry and canceled all live music, the first band out of the blocks were The Mary Wallopers. Unfazed by the global shutdown, the three Dundalk men built a pub/studio in their house to connect with their fans again. On St. Patrick’s Day 2020 they became one of the first bands in the world to host a livestream.
Although there were countless attempts to get live-streaming right during the pandemic, very few matched the Wallopers efforts. Armed with a DIY attitude, they performed live in their homemade clubhouse, creating broadcasts that felt like Wayne’s World soundtracked entirely by Irish ballads. The show brought some much-needed joy to the 40,000 people who tuned in live. As the streams continued, their audiences both home and abroad grew, allowing them to book their first UK headline tour.
To capture the chaotic energy of the livestream, the Wallopers expanded to a seven-piece, including Roisin Barret on bass, Ken Mooney on drums, Seamas Hyland on accordion and Finian O’ Connor on tin whistle. When lockdown restrictions lifted, the band picked up where they left off, playing to ecstatic audience’s of 1500 people a night at two sold out gigs at the prestigious Vicar Street in Dublin before blazing a trail through the UK, ending up with a raucous sold-out date at the Electric Ballroom in Camden.
https://youtu.be/F14dIAkXtvs
