Contemporary folk artist set for Tullamore concert
Irish singer and multi-instrumentalist John Francis Flynn is coming to Offaly for a performance at Tullamore's Esker Arts Centre on Friday, September 27, at 8pm.
The Dublin artist released his solo debut, 'I Would Not Live Always' in 2021. It received widespread favourable reviews and was named 'folk album of the year' in The Guardian newspaper.
The album spent 11 weeks on the folk album charts in the United Kingdom, reaching number 8.
Flynn's second album 'Look Over the Wall, See the Sky' was released last November, and also garnered very favourable reviews.
On his new single ‘Mole In The Ground’, a cover of an American anti-establishment folk song recorded by Bascom Lamar Lunsford in 1928, Flynn evokes the rebellious energy he felt in his home of Dublin during a time when it was being “torn to shreds by property developers and vulture funds.”
In his rendition of the song, Flynn allows the surrealism of the lyrics to take centre stage, opting to speak rather than sing the words.
By taking away its nursery rhyme-like melody, we focus instead on our narrator's stranger fantasies and desires.
His voice, too, sits under the ground of the melody, tapping into the song’s dark, hallucinatory spirit: "I don't like the railroad man/ The railroad man will kill you when he can/ and he’ll drink up your blood like red wine."
The Tullamore performance is part of a series of John Francis Flynn shows across Ireland in late September and early October. These will also include dates at Dolan's in Limerick and in the Roisin Dubh in Galway.
The gig in the Esker Arts Centre will get underway at 8pm (doors 7.30pm) and tickets, priced €20, are on sale now.