Solo singer shares his stage with a host of own favourites!

Dónal Tuipéar is the heartbeat of folk-rock three-piece Ursidae; the Corkman alternates between owning the stage as an energetic frontman and captivating audiences as a solo act.  His willingness to adapt and improvise is what makes Ursidae so versatile and stimulating but it now seems as though Dónal and co are ultimately ready to decide on a more permanent direction.

In order to figure out what direction that's going to be, Ursidae are set to play a series of collaborative gigs in Galway's The Ol' 55 – on Prospect Hill in the city – over the course of the next couple of months.

Featuring some of Galway's best musicians, Ursidae will experiment with a variety of sounds and styles in a venue that Dónal regards as one of the most promising in the city.

“The Ol’ 55 has absolutely huge potential as a venue,” he argues. “There are cover bands like Hungover Beethoven that play there very regularly… as far as I know members from the Galway Street Club play there often as well.

“But as far as original music is concerned, there’s not a lot going on there. I got onto Mossy, the owner, looking for a gig and he said to pick any weekend in October/November. So I said ‘OK, how about all of them?’ We decided to do every second Saturday [in that time].”

Dónal made the decision to involve other local musicians and, in doing so, recognised one of his goals on the Galway scene. Having admired the talents of many of his fellow performers from afar, he will now get the chance to accompany them on stage.

“I ended up mixing it with another idea I had of making a kind of a supergroup of Galway musicians who wouldn’t normally play with bands but would do a lot of solo stuff,” Dónal recalls.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.

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