Dunboyne hometown gig for Tommy Keyes

A veteran Dunboyne musician will play a hometown gig for the first time in many years on Saturday night, 29th July.

 

Tommy Keyes was the keyboard player and main songwriter in Sidewinder, which was very prominent on the Dublin rock scene in the late 1970s.  The band's rehearsal space was in Dunboyne, which is how Tommy came to fall in love with the village and eventually settle there.  A different career-path then took him away from music for almost 40 years, although he could sometimes be enticed to stand in on keyboards for the occasional local gig over the years with Dunboyne troubadours such as Mick McAuley, Joe Murray, Sean Henry and Jimmy Maguire.

 

In the last two years, however, he has made a triumphant return to music and has released three albums, one of which, An Irish Life, recently got a rave review from the rock bible, Hot Press, which rated it 8 out of 10.  He is to be found onstage regularly in venues such as Whelans, the Button Factory and the International, both as a solo performer and with his band.

 

He'll be bringing his full band to Dunboyne to play in Mulvany's Fingal House next Saturday, July 29th.  He promises a selection of original songs from his albums, along with classic covers from the 50s, 60s and 70s, from the likes of Sam Cooke, Gene Vincent, the Beatles, Neil Young and many more.

 

'It's 1970s singer-songwriter music', says Tommy, 'because that's what I am.  I'll leave the Ed Sheeran covers to the younger generation!  What I can promise is that this gig will re-create the experience of a full-on pub gig from the 70s'.

 

The gig starts at 9.30pm and admission is free of charge.