The High Kings

There was about 20 acts on that day.

Everybody from, actually, I think the High Kings were on at that time as well.

So it was a day-long festival, 35,000 people, yeah.

That is remarkable.

And it was, I have to tell you, it was, I'll never forget that night because you did all around the town and the place went bananas.

And I remember coming over to you afterwards and I said to you, Jesus, Eddie, that's a brilliant song.

And I had Brian Whitehead with me, who manages the High Kings, and Brian was with MCD.

Yes, didn't win.

And Doug's a good friend and again, a hell of a guitar player.

And Keith and I just heard Doug on this song and Doug came over to the studio, sat down and just ripped absolutely ripped solo after solo and we were spoiled for choice so lovely to have Doug on that track and then Sweet County Down a song I wrote about moving back to Ireland and so I reached out to an old friend of mine called Darren Holden who sings with a great Celtic rock band called The High Kings and Darren provided some brilliant backing vocals on that track, so huge honour to have him on there.

So again, continuing the theme, it's lovely that a lot of these people that I'm huge fans of, musically I can call good friends and it's just great to have them on there and it just takes the whole thing to another level, just hearing them play on my songs.

I see that you've recently moved back to Northern Ireland from LA.

Tongue twister there.

Before that, you heard the High Kings.

and the Greenfields of France, and that came off their Memory Lane album.

And to start that set, you heard Down by the Langenslide by the Irish Rovers, and that came off their 50 Years.

It was just such a beautiful song and Kelly has done it a bit tough and it's not easy being a musician, is it? Like writing music and touring and...

staying well and um yeah keeping your eyes on the prize I guess and uh yeah I just pay a lot of tribute to all those artists out there who who work so hard writing songs and recording and then performing um for us and one of my greatest joys in life is to go and see live music so um Speaking of live music, the High Kings have come out to Australia or coming out.

I think it's pretty much sold out.

But, yeah, they're playing on October the 9th, I think it is.

Yeah, 9th of October at Hamer Hall they are in Melbourne, one show.

They sell out all around the world.

Let's have a listen to them, the High Kings.

Two tracks, Raglan Road.

Kevin will be away for a couple of weeks and I'll be entertaining you during his absence.

So today we're going to do some Celtic Thunder, some High Kings, some Dublin City Ramblers, Gaelic Storm, Kilmine Saints, the Young Dubliners, and some Irish Rovers.

A whole bunch of good stuff planned for you today.

So I hope you enjoy, and we'll get things started with Celtic Thunder.

So the way things are going, I want to shout out to Mary because she picked a lot of these songs for me to play and I'm just...

Putting them together as we go, and I hope everybody's enjoying them.

So we'll kick this second set off with the High Kings.

Come

Yeah.

Um, and the funniest was, 'cause we were, I was only looking at it a while ago, and the gos- my, the song, Darren Holden from The High Kings wrote a song called The Gospel According to Luke.

Yeah.

Oh, it's great.

He's quirky.

Yeah, yeah.

And, you know, it's funny wh- when he was doing the tour with The High Kings, and he was down in Cork, the Opera House was sold out.

Two hours before the show, he's standing out in the middle of Grand Parade busking.

So honoured to have these two guys.

Ladies and gentlemen, we have Brian, and we have Darren from the High Kings today.

Lads, you're very welcome to the show.

Thank you for having me, lads.

Appreciate that.

No problem at all.

Stuck on the M50 for an hour, right? Gerry, are you aware of the boys' history before the High Kings? I'm not, to be honest with you.

I think, to be honest, it's the first time I'd heard about it.

Farrell? Well, we're going to go a little crazy today.

I want to do some Flogging Molly and some High Kings, and then we'll settle it back down with the Irish Rovers a little later on.

from the gloaming so ¶¶

¦ ¦ . . . . . . ? ? ? ¦ ¦ ? ? ? Thank you.

So

what are you going to play for us?

All right, we're going to start this second set off with, what is it, The High Kings?

The High Kings.