Attention Bebe give a new twist to ’90s hits

Groove Tube with Jimi McDonnell – tribunegroove@live.ie

It might only seem like yesterday to some since the glory days of the 1990s, but that decade is ripe for nostalgia these days. With an ear for the decade’s cheesiest pop music, Attention Bebe come to Monroe’s Live on Friday, November 11. The Dublin-based band formed when singer Jane Cassidy started hosting sessions in her kitchen in Portobello. Her friend and Bebe’s bassist Shane McKenna got wind of this, and they decided to go looking for gigs.

“A few more of us joined in the next session they had and decided we should do it in front of a crowd,” Shane says. “We took it across to the Bernard Shaw venue in Dublin, and we started doing gigs there. Loads of people started coming, in a matter of two gigs.

“So we moved from there into Tripod, which was down the road at the time. It was a bigger venue, 500 capacity. We started doing bigger gigs and it really kicked off.  Then we were playing the Electric Picnic in 2008, and after that we just grew on the festival scene.”

Attention Bebe can be anything from a 12- to a 16-piece band, and they belt out songs from Coolio, Will Smith, 2 Unlimited and more with irresistible gusto.

“It’s kind of unusual, it’s almost like mash-ups of 1990s songs,” Shane says. “We don’t do straight covers; we add in bits of music that we’re interested in. The main song will be a 1990s tune, but we might have Curtis Mayfield thrown in there, and loads of funk and disco. We have loads of freedom of that to throw in to the ‘90s stuff.

“It’s basically to get people dancing,” he adds. “We’re a party band, really. We just want to get into a room and have people dancing from start to finish, that’s the whole idea. There’s a nostalgic element with the ‘90s tunes, everyone can sing along. It’s a big singsong, dance-fest for two hours.”

Trying to synchronise diaries for 16 people must be tricky – who takes on the unenviable job of booking Attention Bebe’s gigs?

“We’ve shared that over the years,” Shane says. “At the moment it’s all booking through a company called Turning Pirate. They book Lisa Hannigan, Booka Brass and at the moment they’re booking us gigs around the place. A festival here, a gig there.

“It’s funny, we got to the point where we didn’t have to look for gigs, people were asking us to do shows all the time. We can just pick and choose the nice ones!”

One of the ‘nice ones’ included their storming set at the Electric Picnic. About 1,000 people packed into a tent for their slot, and it’s probably the reason they’re starting to tour nationwide.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.