Rory makes the transition from the Revs to winning matches!

He was once the driving force behind indie-punk band The Revs and more recently achieved fame – or infamy – for his ode to former Donegal football manager Jimmy McGuinness…but whatever the stage or genre, Rory Gallagher has embraced it all with relish.

Now he is making a highly anticipated return to the original music scene, after spending a decade running a successful live music bar on the Canary Islands.

These days, he is playing with renowned violinist Sean Magee – and his sound has transitioned into the acoustic folk of a seasoned Irish singer-songwriter.

Rory & the Island will play Galway’s Loft Venue on Bridge Street on Wednesday, February 20 – and having garnered a cult Irish following over the last ten years, Rory’s current tour has so far seen diasporic audiences fill venues in Glasgow and London.

It’s an incredible response for a musician who, at certain stages in his career, has perhaps felt as though he’d fallen short of his potential.

While more recent success has come in the form of 2013 viral hit Jimmy’s Winning Matches, there is still a sense of regret about Rory’s experience with Donegal indie-punk band, The Revs, in the early 2000s.

“It was a tough one to get over, really, because it kind of faded away to nothing,” he recalls.

“It wasn’t like we had a massive fight… It happened so fast for us. Our first single went into the top twenty – Wired to the Moon. It stayed there for nine weeks and all of a sudden we were getting support slots to The Hives and Muse, playing Dublin Castle and Slane with Stereophonics. We just thought ‘this is easy’ like a young gambler who puts money on his first horse and the horse wins.”

The Revs’ initial success was driven by an intense style of management intent on building their social image. Rory alludes to a naivety around the band’s approach and the mistakes they made in perhaps rushing their development.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.

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