MacD on Music: Science Fiction, Double Feature

What’s better than seeing a great artist live in concert? Seeing two of them! There have been many great double headline shows over the years, with combinations like Bob Dylan/Neil Young, Strength NIA/Jinx Lennon and Counting Crows/Santana gracing stages together in recent years.

This Saturday (6th December) will see two more brilliant singers take to the Guildhall stage in a one-off double bill when Music Capital presents, for one night only, Rumer and Mary Coughlan. I spoke with both of them about the gig and how it came together, starting with Rumer.

We began with a catch up since our last chat a few years ago (July 2022 for those willing to scroll back through Instagram): “Since 2022, I’ve been writing. I’ve created this new project ‘In Session’ which is a collection of my songs across the board with the Redtenbacher’s Funkestra, which is a sort of mellow soul group. It’s a nice collection. It came out last year. I wanted to do that for the new fan, for people who don’t know any of my music.”

Next, we spoke about her co-headliner: “I love Mary Coughlan! I kept bugging Kieran [Dunlop] saying, ‘I really want to meet Mary Coughlan’ and every time he had her on in Derry I’d say ‘I can’t believe I missed that’ so I kind of made it happen with my mind. I kept saying ‘I really want to meet her’. I think she’s amazing and mesmerising and so special, so this is fun for me.”

“I love to come to Derry. I met Frank Gallagher, who’s in my band now, in Derry. I’ve met some wonderful people, and I just feel very happy when I go there. It’s a very musical town, and it’s got a lot of soul.”

“I think I play Derry more than any other city in Ireland. I just feel a connection to the place. It draws me in. It’s a special place.

Speaking of the gig: “It’s going to be stripped down. I’ll do my set first, then Mary will do her set, then we’ll probably do a song at the end. It should be really nice. It’s quite an unusual evening. I don’t know if it’ll ever happen again.”

Now we move on to Mary Coughlan, starting with her history of gigs in Derry: “I play there every year. I’ve played with Francis [Black] and Sharon [Shannon], and then I do my own gigs. I’ll be doing Gweedore on the 5th then the Guildhall on the 6th.”

READ MORE: MacD on Music

Next, we moved on to her history in Derry: “I used to do Sandino’s, and I did the Delacroix, and I did one, it might have been the Guildhall as well. I remember there was some sort of bomb scare outside, and the army were at the site, and we could hear all their conversations coming over the monitors. It was really funny. The didn’t realise, obviously, that everything they were saying to each other was being picked up and, of course, I was relaying it to the audience, as you would.”

Next, we moved on to the (hopefully British army-free) gig with Rumer: “We do gigs for Kieran up in the north every year, in St. Augustine’s and we do Gweedore, and Rumer had started to text me during the year on Instagram, and one thing led to another and I got an email from Kieran asking would I want to do the Guildhall.

"It would be a double bill, so we would share the night equally and do some songs together at the end. I’ve been following her on Instagram now, so we’ve chosen a couple of songs with her musical director that we can do together. It’ll be great!”

“I have three lads, three of my own musicians playing with me, and she has three, so I guess we’ll all come together for some songs at the end because we have different instruments. It’ll be quite something.”

And that’s it from Rumer and Mary. They’ll be playing the Guildhall this Saturday with support from Taylor Lally. Tickets are £36.50 plus booking fee via Ticketsource.co.uk. Doors are at 6.45pm with music starting at 7.30pm.

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Now, onto other business. Keeping with the theme of double headliners, earlier this year saw American singers Korina Zambrano and Eli Waltz play Bennigan’s as part of their Irish tour. It was a great night featuring two great artists that we’ll hopefully be hearing a lot more from in the future, starting this Friday (5th December) with the release of Korina’s EP ‘Ghosts In My Room’, which was preceded by the title track and ‘You Never Really Say It’ earlier this year. It will be available on all good streaming platforms.

Also, on Friday and Saturday, ahead of his appearance in this fine column next week, Declan McLaughlin will be playing Cyprus Avenue in Cork. Anyone reading, around that direction, make sure you don’t miss it.

And now we bring it back home to Sandino’s, where rOwdy will be headlining on Thursday night with support from Meat Squid and OURglass. Tickets are £5 and doors are 7.30pm.

Finally, time for the socials. rOwdy can be found on Instagram @r0wdy_band, Meat Squid @meatsquidband, OURglass @ourglass_band, Declan McLaughlin @declanmclaughlin_derry, Korina Zambrano @korinazambrano, Rumer @rumersongs and Mary Coughlan @coughlan804.