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McGrorys Backroom at Culdaff

Posted Thursday, February 11, 2010

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Top Guitarists

What a fantastic place McGrorys at Culdaff is!

Culdaff is only a small town with around 200 people.

Yet, it could be argued that Culdaff does better than many of the larger surrounding towns which have much bigger populations.

Festival

Last weekend they had a Guitar Festival.

I think tickets for the weekend were something like €80 each.

"They won't sell many of those" I thought.

I couldn't have been more wrong.

They were sold out.

Top Stars

They attracted top stars like Henry McCullough, the only Irishman to play at Rock's greatest ever festival Woodstock as well as Michael Jackson's guitarist.

What a great wheeze and publicity stunt to get her and her musicians to roar into Moville Community College on their motorbikes to play and give a talk.

Moville Festivals

As readers know I run the TradFest, DylanFest and BeatlesFest in Moville - but I have to take my hat off to McGrory's.

Maybe I'll get in touch with them for some advice.

Taken from their website here are some of the people who have played in the Backroom.

McGrorys Backroom

The Backroom at McGrory’s is one of the top venues for live music in Ireland.

Purpose built to enhance live music performance, the venue has a top class Turbosound P.A. and Avolites controlled lighting system permanently installed. Since it first opened its doors, acts from all around the world have regularly appeared in Mac’s.

Many of Ireland’s top acts have all performed in The Backroom including such names as;

- Altan
- Mary Black
- Damien Dempsey
- Brian Kennedy
- Martin Hayes & Denis Cahill
- Sharon Shannon
- Four Men & A Dog
- Frankie Gavin
- The Sawdoctors
- Cara Dillon

Not to forgot other top acts to have taken centre stage in The Backroom including;

- Republic of Loose
- Duke Special
- The Blizzards
- Juliet Turner

World famous names have also performed live in The Backroom, to name but a few;

- Peter Green (Fleetwood Mac)
- Guy Clark
- China Crisis- John Martyn
- Arlo Guthrie
- Chris Hillman
- Maria Muldaur
- Kathryn Williams
- Burrito Deluxe featuring
Sneaky Pete & Garth Hudson
- The Selector
- Rodney Crowell
- Tommy Emmanuel
- Albert Lee
- The Bundu Boys
- Ron Sexsmith
- Townes Van Zandt*

Ireland’s most northerly venue regularly features major tour itineraries alongside the major cities and a list that reads London, Glasgow, Manchester, Dublin, Belfast, Galway and Culdaff is not unusual. Not bad for a village of just 200 people!

Comment

Culdaff should be in competition with places like Gleenely and should be getting dwarfed by places like Moville, Carn and Buncrana.

Instead, it could be argued, that they are more in competition for top musical acts with Derry - which has a population of 100,000 compared to Culdaff's 200.

It really is a big success story.