Best for the West concert for Goitse

UP-and-coming band Goitse will be showing Clare audiences what they can do at the Best for the West Concert in Doolin next Monday.
Due to the difficult economic climate and lack of funding, the organisers of the concert, which has been held for a number of years in Doolin, decided to only offer one concert this year.
“It will be only one concert but we are trying to make it a very special event, which audiences will love. We think that Goitse are the next big thing in Irish music,” Petr Pandula of Magnetic Music, organisers of Best for the West said.
Goitse is Donegal Irish for “come here”. It is a five-piece group and all of the members are students of traditional music and dance at the University of Limerick. The band emerged about two years ago when Eoin Coughlan asked some musicians to play for Telethon at Dolan’s, Limerick.
Their recently released CD includes many of their own compositions and owes its distinctive sound to the collaborative arrangements by all members.
Áine McGeeney is a fiddle player and a well known singer. She spent an extended spell touring with the world famous Lord of the Dance as part of her third year practical performance studies.
James Harvey has claimed four All-Ireland banjo titles in-a-row and a further three on the mandolin.
Tadhg Ó Meachair has quickly gained recognition as being one of Ireland’s top young piano and piano accordion players and was a main feature of the recent television series by Donal Lunny for TG4.
Colm Phelan is a talented bodhrán player and has won back-to-back All-Irelands and a world title, together with success as a céilí band drummer, and is an acknowledged tutor in this field.
Conal O’Kane from Philiadelphia, is a multi-instrumentalist, who adds another dimension to the group with his Donegal/American influence. He grew up learning fiddle and banjo during summers in Buncranna before learning guitar in Philiadelphia.
Niall Keegan, the course director for traditional music performance at the Limerick university, said it is refreshing to hear Goitse, a band producing startling and mature performances while only setting off on their musical journey. “I am quite sure they don’t know their destination and that’s part of the fun,” he commented.
Michael Ó Suilleabhain, head of the World Academy of Irish Traditional Music and Dance at UL added, “Goitse is in its first flowering. Those fortunate enough to be around them at such a special time will sense the soundings of their spring stations. Theirs is a wide-angled lens casting the music out to all who will listen.”
Goitse will be playing in the Magnetic Music Café, Fisher Street, Doolin next Monday. Doors will open at 9.30pm.