Darling of the accordion Sharon is on the button!
by Sinead Hogan Updated: Friday, 26th August, 2011 11:30am
The Fleadh Dome was full to capacity last Tuesday evening as 2,000 trad music enthusiasts packed in to see Sharon Shannon and her band perform in concert and launch harpist Kavan Donohoe's CD. According to events and entertainment chairman, Martin Donohoe, a further 500 people had to be turned away.
There would have been little comfort for them afterwards when the general consensus from word-of-mouth reviews was that the show was an absolute blast.
The audience was warmed up by talented young musicians, Fergal Breen and Graham Lynch, Meitheal award winners, and their friends. There followed a guest performance by Co. Armagh teenager Miceál Mullen who was given a thundering round of applause when he performed a tune he wrote for his brother Edward, from whom he got a life-changing kidney transplant last November.
Introduced as a young man who's been breaking hearts, teenage king of the harp Kavan Donohoe was next on stage together with Niall Preston on bodhran, Fintan McManus on bouzouki and Miceál Mullen on tin whistle. They played a selection of tunes from Kavan's debut CD, Kavan from Cavan, which Sharon warmly launched and endorsed.
The Clare accordionist, who shot to mainstream fame when the Woman's Heart CD in 1992 included her performance of The Blackbird, took to the stage surrounded by talent - her sister, Mary Shannon on banjo, Jim Murray on guitar and Dezi Donnelly on fiddle.
They breezed effortlessly through a lively selection of jigs, reels and hornpipes from The Neckbelly Reel to Rathlin Islands reels. The audience was loving the mostly up-tempo choice but Sharon thought of those with more mellow tastes and called for one of her band to fill that gap. Fiddler Dezi delivered a beautiful impromptu performance of a slow air, The Old Resting Chair by Tom Anderson.
When MC Garry Lynch asked after the show came to an end if we wanted more, we wondered why else would most of the 2,000 still be sitting there! It was worth the wait when Kavan and his dad Martin Donohoe joined Sharon and her band on stage for an encore that included The Blackbird and The Galway Girl.
"People engage with someone like Sharon," Martin commented afterwards. "That's what the Fleadh is all about, giving people a great trad music experience."
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