Entertainment
Magical journey in store with UK guitar virtuoso Jon Gomm
The Groove Tube with Jimi McDonnell – tribunegroove@live.ie
Using his voice, a guitar and loop pedals, Blackpool-born Jon Gomm is more than just a one-man band. The multi-talented musician, whose fans include actor Stephen Fry and Tommy Lee from Motley Crue, plays the city’s Róisín Dubh venue on Friday, April 12.
Jon’s distinctive guitar sound is his calling card and he says the moment he fell for that instrument was a life-defining decision – although he was only a toddler!
“My Dad says I was watching TV, and there was someone on playing guitar,” he recalls. “It was Mark Knopfler with Dire Straits, playing his bright red shiny Stratocaster guitar. I was two years old, and my Dad said all I wanted after that was a guitar.
“I started having guitar lessons when I was four,” Jon adds. “After that, I started getting into the blues and going to gigs with my Dad. I was a pretty early starter!”
Rumour has it that Jon Gomm once received a guitar lesson from the legendary BB King. Is this really true?
“It was a brief one!” Jon laughs of the lesson. “I was backstage at gig in the Wintergardens in Blackpool, and my Dad used to write reviews of gigs for a local newspaper. So I got to go backstage and play Lucille, BB King’s famous guitar.
“He was lovely. Sometimes, when I meet these famous guitar players they’re not really interested and they find you a bit annoying if you’re a little kid. BB King was like Santa or something! He’s also the best live performer I’ve ever seen.”
Jon Gomm’s guitar style takes in a variety of influences. One his earliest teachers was a flamenco player, so Jon’s music has that flavour. But he’s also a big fan of eighties guitar wizards like Joe Satriani and Steve Vai. There’s also a strong percussive element to Jon’s sound – at times, he uses his guitar as a drum.
Passionflower is Jon’s best known song to date, with over four million views on YouTube. Jon, who turned down a place at Oxford to pursue his musical career, explains how the song came about.
“I think you can get inspiration from anything; I can’t think of many songs about plants, though!” he says. “It’s about a real plant that I grew in my backyard. It was in Leeds, West Yorkshire, [a place] like Coronation Street, with loads of terraced houses all in a row. A little yard, with a brick wall around it.”
Jon threw seeds from a discarded passion fruit into a small pot and the plant grew from there, coming to life while he was away on tour.
“I came back, and the whole yard was just covered in this green plant, like a jungle,” he says. “I traced it back to this tiny little pot. Then on the one day of summer we get in Leeds every year, the sun came out and all these buds all the plant burst open within hours of each other. All these tropical flowers, it was an incredible thing to see. So I wrote a song about the unlikely nature of it.”
How could a song about a plant clock up such a huge amount of hits?
“It was just people sharing it,” Jon says. “It’s still going, as well; people will keep discovering it because it’s a popular thing now. It had been online for two months, and then it was posted on Reddit. You either vote it up or down; eventually it ended up on the front page of the site.
“But there are other things as well. There were celebrities tweeting about it, a really strange mix – like Stephen Fry and Tommy Lee from Motley Crue [and ex-husband of Pamela Anderson]. You can’t really think of two more diverse celebrities! I think one day, I could have a very strange dinner party!”
For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.
Folk duo Niall Teague and Pádraic Joyce are launching their new album What Will We Be, a blend of folk, Americana and acoustic music, this Friday, May 19, at 8pm in An Taibhdhearc.
The success of their well-received 2020 release Taobh le Taobh, as well as recent successes at the Pan Celtic and Oireachtas Song Contests, spurred the duo on to record this new album which represents many years of collaboration and musical development.
It features Niall and Pádraic on vocals, harmonies, and acoustic guitars, Maidhc Ó hÉanaigh on double bass and Neil Fitzgibbon on fiddle. The catchy title track, What Will We Be, features contributions from percussionist Jim Higgins (The Stunning, Christy Moore, Paul Brady) and haunting, driving melodies on vocals, guitar, and fiddle.
Themes of love and hope are woven through Come Away with Me which features interplay between piano and fiddle as well as rich vocal harmonies.
People, places, and broken dreams are celebrated and lamented on Martin and Tom, Guitar Gold, Memories of You and Achill Island. The influence of David Henry Thoreau’s novel Walden features on the tracks Simple and Wise and Walden, with the beauty of nature, escape and simple pleasures at their core.
The album moves from minimalistic folk ballads such as Galway Ghost to swirling, string-laden arrangements on the song Neptune, both of which are influenced by maritime tales from Galway. Much of the work on this album was supported by the Arts Council, including work with musical arranger Eoin Corcoran and the string ensemble Treo.
The album will be launched this Friday, May 19, at 8pm in an Taibhdhearc. Tickets €22, plus booking fee at Eventbrite.ie.
Dunmore is the place to be this weekend for lovers of traditional music, as the Galway County Fleadh will take place there from this Friday, May 19, to Sunday, May 23.
It is 10 years since Dunmore last hosted a fleadh and the local Comhaltas branch, which has re-formed since Covid, is looking forward to facilitating this gathering of music, song, dance and craic.
The official Opening Concert will take place in Dunmore Town Hall this Friday at 8pm with the acclaimed Mulcahy family from Limerick. Mick, Louise and Michelle are well known throughout the country, thanks to their live performances, television appearances and numerous CDs. They were the winners of the TG4 Gradam Ceoil Grúpa Ceoil Award for 2023. Tickets for their concert can be purchased on the door and a great night of music is promised.
Two days of competitions will kick off this Saturday at the town’s Community School, with more than 1,500 competitors taking part. Participants will be hoping to qualify for the Connacht Fleadh 2023, which will be held in Ballina, County Mayo, from June 23 to July 2.
Competitions for those aged Under 10, Under 12 and Under 15 will be held in a large variety of instruments on Saturday, as well as in singing and Comhrá Gaeilge. Sunday’s competitions will be for the Under 18 and Over 18 ages groups, as well as in dancing.
On both days a large entry is expected for Grúpaí Cheoil and Céilí Band competitions across all age groups.
Seventeen Comhaltas branches from across Galway will have participants in this weekend’s competitions, which will result in a large number of visitors to the Dunmore area.
Members of the public are welcome to attend the competitions, which offer a great opportunity to hear and see the talent on display. There will be sessions in local pubs over the weekend as well and everybody is welcome to attend these.
For more information on the County Fleadh, go to www.galwaycomhaltas.ie.
Music for Galway’s concert with renowned Swiss pianist Cédric Pescia which had been due to take place on April 27 but which had to be deferred, will now take place next Tuesday, May 23, at 8pm, in the Emily Anderson Concert Hall at the University of Galway.
This concert of German classics with Bach at its core, will brings the Bach element of Music for Galway’s 41st season to an end.
This world-class pianist who won the famous Gina Bachauer International Artists Piano Competition, has a repertoire that spans many eras from baroque to contemporary and he is widely known for his elaborate programmes. Cédric Pescia describes music as ‘language and movement at the same time’.
Audiences will have a chance to experience his soft, clear touch as he performs a programme for solo piano that will include classics such as Schumann’s popular Waldszenen (Forest Scenes), a suite of nine short pieces, and the penultimate of Beethoven’s piano sonatas, No. 31. These pieces will be interspersed with French Suites by Bach.
■ Ticket for Cédric Pescia’s concert are available at www.musicforgalway.ie, or by phone 091 705962 and on the door on the night. They cost €20/€18. The price for fulltime students of all ages is €6 while MfG Friends can avail of the friends’ rate of €16.
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