THE second Wings Music Festival will be held in Shannon over the course of a week from February 20-26.
It follows the initial festival which was held last June, and organiser Damian O’Rourke said that holding it before the summer could see an even greater level of local interest and engagement.
“There’s a lot going on in the summer. The winter is a good time for it, with the dark evenings you might have more people who would like to go to a gig and get involved in something,” he told The Champion.
“When it’s the summer people might want to head off, whereas in the winter it’s more suited to indoor gigs.
“I was a big fan of the Winter Music Festival in Sixmilebridge. That was at the end of January, I loved that vibe and I’m trying to pull a few bits from what they created and bring it to Shannon.
“I hope they come back. I didn’t want to have this at the end of January because I’m hoping that festival will come back and we could work together hopefully, down the line.”
He said that fundraising has been going on for some time and there has been a very good response.
“We’ve been raising funds for the last few weeks and a lot of local companies have got behind us. We set a target of €10,000 to cover everything that we’re planning to do this year and we’re quite near that target now.
“Anything that goes above the €10,000 will go towards next year’s festival, there are plans for next year already and we’ll start fundraising for that towards the summer.
“I’d love for it to get to a point where the festival is self-sustaining so that fundraising isn’t needed and ticketed gigs cover the whole thing, but that’s for down the line.
“Now it’s really about the community, people have been helping out on GoFundMe, companies have got behind it. We busked on Saturday in the Town Centre for six or seven hours and we made €524 there. This year the community is making it happen.”
When it comes to nominating highlights of the upcoming festival, Damian is not short of suggestions, reeling of a list of local talent.
“There are so many, we have Ger and Trev, Ger O’Donnell and Trevor Sexton who are white hot at the moment. Their first duo album is out now and they’ve been selling out places all over the country. They’re going to play on the Wednesday night in the middle of the festival.
“Then we’ll have Cyril O’Donoghue and Blackie O’Connell. They’ll be playing a gig together on the Friday and then Blackie is bringing his Piping Heaven Piping Hell session to Shannon on Saturday, there’ll be a load of pipers and Cyril as well.
“Friday and Saturday night will be all local bands. We’re building a stage in the Lodge at the Shannon Springs Hotel and we’ll have the best of the best local bands playing on that stage on the Friday and Saturday.
“During the day on Saturday we’ll have workshops throughout the town. On Tuesday night we have an open mic. It’s set up to involve as many people as possible. People who aren’t in bands can come and play at the open mic if they fancy being part of it.
“We’ll have two sessions as well, one on the Monday night to kick it off and one on the Sunday to wind it down. We’re going to try and get everyone we can involved.”
Damian has always sought to encourage musicians in Shannon and strongly believes in the benefits of music in the community.
“I just love that feeling in a room when music brings people together. We had a session yesterday, there were people in it who’d I’d only say hello to, but music brought us together in the same room, we sang a song together, all of a sudden we were having a conversation and it becomes more personal. That’s the power of music and I want as many people as possible to experience it.”
Owen Ryan has been a journalist with the Clare Champion since 2007, having previously worked with a number of other publications in Limerick, Cork and Galway. His first book will be published in December 2024.