MacD on Music: Vandees Live In Sandy’s

The Derry music scene is thriving at the minute, with new bands popping up all the time. It’s pretty much impossible to keep up with it all (despite what a certain group say) but one of the best ways to discover new talent is gigs.

In the three years I’ve been doing this job, I’ve got to go to a lot of shows, and I’ve seen a lot of great artists, not just headlining but opening.

The first time I saw TRAMP and Parker they were opening for General Fiasco. The Switch (then just known as Switch) were opening for Touts and The Marra were opening for Melter.

This week, I’m talking to The Vandees, a group that I first saw opening for Lord Jane in the first ever gig put on by NuMuze at the end of October.

The Vandees are made up of Garbhán Ó Somacháin (vocals, guitar, piano), Mark McLaughlin (vocals, bass, piano), Jim Duffy (drums) and Ruairi Martin (lead guitar) and are going to be playing their first headline gig in Sandino’s this Wednesday and I caught up with them to talk about it.

First, they told me about how the band came to be. Garbhán: “Me and Jim were in a previous band but me Mark and Jim all went to the same school and played with each other in various parts of the jazz band. It started with me and Jim wanting to play in a band and then, about a year after that, I heard Mark was intrigued but we had to test him. We had to do X-Factor auditions, but it was the obvious choice to get Mark into it. Summer 2023 was just practising, practising, practising and then Ruairi joined a bit after that.”

I asked them next about what they’ve done so far. Mark: “We played our first gig at the Bennigan’s Battle of The Bands, which was a good one because it was a Battle Of The Bands and the pressure wasn’t that high. We had to play four songs and we only had four so that worked for us. We played in Belfast the week after that, then we did the Lord Jane gig. It’s going well. Every gig’s a new experience. You meet new people and other musicians. It’s the best way to get your name and your tunes out there.”

We talked then about the upcoming Christmas gig. Garbhán: “The Vandees Live at Sandy’s.”

Mark: “It was written in the stars, really.”

Garbhán: “I’ve had a couple of people come up to me saying ‘Is that why we named the band the Vandees?’. It actually isn’t.”

Mark: “We named the band after a B&B I stayed in in Aghalee. It was the best B&B to ever exist. Ed Sheeran’s ma and da stayed there. We’re excited for the Christmas gig.”

Garbhán: “We’ve put a lot of work into it. It’ll be a show. That’s what I’ll say. It’ll be an eventful show. It won’t just be a gig. It’ll be something we want people to talk about, in a cultural sense. The plan is to just keep going after that. We’ve got a couple of gigs in Derry after that. We’re doing a charity gig in Bennigan’s then we’re also back in Belfast in the New Year.”

Mark: “We’ve got a lot of new stuff for that gig. A lot of stuff we’ve not done before. With a headline gig we can do a lot more. We can work a piano into it and Garbhán can get the saxophone out. No spoilers, but I might have a kazoo. We can do that in a headline gig because we’ve got a bit more freedom.”

Garbhán: “I think because we all played before and we know each other’s rhythms from playing the way that we did before, we all didn’t only start playing music a couple of years ago, so this is something we can put our own knowledge and our influences in it.”

And that’s it from the Vandees.

READ MORE: MacD on Music

Tickets for their Christmas gig in Sandino’s are on sale now on Eventbrite.

Paul Casey

Now, onto other business. It may be coming up to the end of the year but there’s no sign of things slowing down for Derry’s best and brightest. First of all, Paul Casey will be playing a solo acoustic gig in St. Columb’s Hall on December 27th. Tickets for that one are available now in Cool Discs.

tessio

Also, this Friday will see the release of tessio’s highly anticipated self-titled debut album.

I’ll be talking to them about it next week in these fine pages.

Now, time for the socials. Paul Casey can be found on Facebook and Instagram @paulcaseymusic, tessio @tessio__, The Vandees B&B @vandees1 and the band named after them @the_vandees.