Declan O'Rourke to celebrate 20 years of Since Kyabram with special concert

It's 20 years since Declan O'Rourke released his seminal album Since Kyabram and helped launch the career of one of Ireland's greatest singer songwriters.

Evocative and heartworn, the debut won over a generation of fans who have stuck with him over the years. Among them are Paul Weller who had him as guest at his mini residency in Dublin back in 2012 and again invited the Galway man to join him on stage when he visited his hometown in 2022.

Songs such as Galileo, timeless and cerebral, mark out Declan as an extraordinary talent - in his lyrics, melody and performance, his powerful baritone conjuring the spirit of Scott Walker in full Jacques Brel mode. It's quite something.

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To celebrate the anniversary, Declan will be performing the album in full at the Ulster Hall on Sunday, November 20. He said: "Since Kyabram is a record I'm very proud of, both as an introductory body of work and a collection of songs individually. After 20 years I'm still hugely nostalgic for it and love that it has become a favourite for so many others.

To celebrate and release Kyabram all over again, this time with a deeper dive inside the tapes, is going to be such a trip. Being fully immersed in the music once more for just a handful of special 20th Anniversary concerts will also be a very exciting."

Catchy... & it’ll get Stuck In My Head!

Lavengro, as the old blurb declares, are a four-piece pop band “with dreams of breaking out of the council estates to global success”. With songs like Stuck In My Head in their armoury that dream might just become a reality.

The lads from Derry have been kicking about for around decade, though somehow still very young, but it’s only in the last couple of years they have begun to gain the traction they crave and deserve.

The gigs have been getting a little bigger and the reactions a little bit better while the songs they are coming out with are taking it to a new level. Stuck In My Head is a nailed-on summer classic, as catchy as its name suggests. It’s a fun and bouncy earworm of a track but has just enough emotional clout to sucker punch you too.

They said: “It’s a sentiment that many can relate to - that feeling when a memory just won’t leave your mind, no matter how hard you try to shake it off. But it’s in the melodic childlike rhyme of the chorus that plays on constant repeat in your mind, echoing the repetitive memory of your ex’s presence in your mind. Everywhere you go and you just can’t seem to get them out of your head.”

Try it for yourself.

Other music news

The Killers’ hit Mr Brightside has overtaken Wonderwall as the UK’s biggest-selling single never to have reached No1. It’s not that much of a surprise for, while the Oasis track was once ubiquitous, to hear it these days is a relative rarity whereas you could chance upon the American band’s 2003 tale of jealousy and betrayal on U105 every week. And the days in between my youngsters play it on Spotify on repeat. Frontman Brandon Flowers says he feels somewhat detached from the song despite its personal nature.

He added: “It’s just this thing that exists in the world, and it’s amazing that I had something to do with it, but I almost feel a little bit removed from it because it’s so big. And he told Official Charts: “Thank you so much to all our fans for making Mr Brightside the third biggest song of all time in the UK, and the biggest ever not to have reached Number 1; not yet at least! “This Top 10 Award means a lot to us, ‘Mr. Brightside’ has been completely embraced by the British public and we can’t wait to celebrate with you all on the road. Thank you for supporting us. See you soon!”

Fontaines DC have played some new songs on American TV shows and they’re really rather good. There’s a subtly and tenderness in frontman Grian Chatten’s delivery in both Favourite and Romance which seems like a departure from the spitting vitriol we associate with the Dublin rockers. It’s also rather at odds with the band’s new look which seems to reference that weird late-90s, early-2000s cyber-punk-raver look beloved of bands such as Babylon Zoo and New Radicals. Good sound, bad look.