Derry artist Gemma Doherty touring with U2 frontman

This week, local musician Gemma Doherty joins Bono on the tour to promote his book, ‘Surrender: 40 Songs, One Story’.

The tour, featuring fourteen dates in North America and Europe, sees Bono playing songs from throughout his career as well as stories from his life.

Gemma will be one of two musicians backing him, playing the harp for what should be very interesting arrangements of classic U2 songs.

It is being produced by legendary producer Jackknife Lee.

You may not recognise the name Jackknife Lee, but it’s a pretty safe bet you’ve heard his work.

As a producer, Lee has worked on albums including Taylor Swift’s ‘Red’ (both the original and Taylor’s Version), R.E.M.’s last two albums, Neil Diamond’s ‘Melody Road’ and U2’s ‘Songs of Experience’.

As well as this, Lee is a prolific solo artist and has released a number of albums, most recently as part of the duo Telefís, along with the late Cathal Coughlan (the duo’s second album, ‘a Dó’ can be found in Cool Discs).

The main man on this tour is, of course, Bono.

Obviously, the majority of Bono’s musical career has been as frontman of U2.

Unlike most frontmen, Bono has yet to release a solo album. He has, however, appeared as a solo artist a number of times in the past.

Anyone who saw last week’s 'MacD on Music' column will have seen his cover of ‘Hallelujah’ mentioned as one of the few that is actually half-decent, not an easy thing to do, considering the song has been covered, with varying degrees of decency, by everyone from Bob Dylan (one of the first to do it) to Alexandra Burke.

Bono’s cover, featured on the Leonard Cohen tribute album ‘Tower of Song’ (also available in Cool Discs), is totally unlike any other version, and thus is actually worth listening to.

Bono has also taken part in a number of charity songs over the years, including ‘Sun City’ in 1985 and ‘Homeward Bound’ in 2018.

The later featured the first musical crossing between Bono and Gemma, who shared a line on the title track on the album.
This brings us back to the main focus of the article: Gemma.

MacD on Music: Bringing Werewolf Pop to the Masses

Gemma has been making waves since 2014 as half of NI Music Prize-winning duo Saint Sister.

Along with Morgana MacIntyre, they’ve released two excellent albums (‘Shape of Silence’ in 2018 and ‘Where I Should End’ in 2021) and an EP (‘Madrid’, 2015).

Built mainly around keyboards and Gemma’s harp, Saint Sister have created a unique sound that makes them stand out from the crowd among a nation of guitar-based bands.

To date, they’ve played support slots with Lisa Hannigan, Keane, and, most recently, Tori Amos.

Gemma will be playing the Olympia Theatre, Dublin with Bono on the 21st November.