JOHN HEGARTY
no support – Doors 8pm – Show 8:30pm
Whelan’s Upstairs • Sun 22nd September 2024
John Hegarty launches his new album, Daydreaming with a live performance accompanied by Mary Barnecutt on Cello and Kenneth Rice on Violin.
As a songwriter, John Hegarty has made his name with collections of songs written on open-tuned folky guitar with broad, ambitious musical arrangments featuring strings and woodwind on albums like Twilight and Into the Great Unknown.
His latest record, Daydreaming reprieves his trademark classic songwriting style and weaves a rich tapestry of pastoral landscapes, hazy summer days and happy sad memories.
The new songs are written on piano with strong musical narratives that also have the freedom to wonder, that kind of imaginative drift is summed up by the albums title track “Daydreaming”, an impressionstic song based on childhood summer days lying in fields of long grass staring at clouds.
The song lifts off with strings that seems to float into the sky and soar back to the ground, backed by a light improvised piano and the expansive, soulful drumming of Dave Hingerty. John plays a mini-grand piano accompanied by a string quartet comprising the talents of violinists, Kenneth Rice and Maria Ryan, viola player, Gawain Usher and cellist, Orlaith Ni Challanain.
With an adventurous song structure and the warm acoustic glow of albums of the early 1970s, Marty Whelan immeadiately got the song and played it on his show, Marty in the Morning on Lyric FM describing “Daydreaming” as “just gorgeous”.
The albums was recorded in 2023 in The Barn Studio and Twilight Studio in Kilkenny and produced by Leo Pearson and John Hegarty. String arrangments were written by the talented cellist and songwriter, Mary Barnecutt and John Hegarty, and the project was part funded by the Arts Council of Ireland.
Daydreaming is Kilkenny based Record label, Rollercoaster Record’s newest release and reinforces the labels continuing comittment to Independent music with a roster of artists that includes Aborist, Malojian and Dave Murphy.
Having launched a Vinyl Gatefold Edition of Twilight by John Hegarty in 2022 and a Daydreaming EP for Record Store Day earlier this year, Rollercoaster Records will release the Daydreaming album on CD and Digitial Download on Friday, September the 20th of September.
A talented solo artist, Hegarty returns to his old stomping ground, Whelans with an intimate performance in the capital, showcasing songs from Daydreaming with selections from his back catalogue.
‘There’s a record that came out about called Twilight by John Hegarty here in Ireland and it blew me away. I love that record and that singer’. – Glen Hansard
“…..a pop force to be reckoned who mines from the motherlode of Bacharach, Big Star and The Beatles” – The Irish Times
“….a wonderful collection of gentle, sun-soaked songs …” – The Irish Daily Star
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TICKETS
€15 available online from Whelan’s – 50c per ticket service charge applies.
Strictly over 18′s, I.D. may be required
AFTER THE GIG
Whelan’s Silent Disco from 10:30pm – 2 DJs, just pick the one you like best (€5 cover charge), plus Late Bar