CITY TRIBUNE, Friday, August 4, 1989

Na buachaillí uisce - or how The Waterboys conquered Inishmore!

by Harry McGee

“Feách cé tá ann, an buachaill uisce é féin”, shouted one of the local fishermen good naturedly as Tomás Mac Eoin stepped off the “Seabird” ferry at Kilronan last Thursday.

An buachaill uisce é féin (the elder Waterboy) laughed, and took all the gentle slagging from islanders in his stride as he walked slowly along the long curving pier that leads up to Kilronan village itself.

For the noted sean nos singer from an Cheathrú Rua is well known on the island - only two months ago he had travelled to Arainn with his local Cumann Drámaiochta. In fact, to many islanders he is better known than the Waterboys, the major international group with whom he would be making a guest appearance tonight.

Little less than a month ago the Waterboys had played at the mammoth Glastonbury Festival in England. But tonight they would be seen by no more than 400 people in two concerts given in the tiny Halle Rónain in Kilronan - the contrast could not be starker.

The Waterboys had agreed to play on the island before they gave their two concerts in Galway City as part of the Arts Festival. It would be a benefit performance with the band playing free of charge with proceeds from the concert going to the lifeboat service on the island.

Now at the height of the summer season the island is thronged with tourists, mostly Europeans and Americans, who are making their own pilgrimages to the place. Downtown Kilronan takes on the aspect of downtown Beijing with all the bicycles whizzing around. There are no shortage of takers for the traditional horse and jarvey trips, and there are few vacancies in guest houses on the island.

Among islanders, however, the talk is not of the tourists or the sea but of “na buachaillí uisce”. The band dominates the conversation on the street, in Kilronan’s three pubs, and in Tigh Powell as islanders pick up their copies of “An Chonnacht”. Invariably the first question that will be asked will be: "An bhfuil tú ag dul ag an concert anocht?"

“Au buachaillí uisce”. They have jokingly become the key words on the island in the last few days. Up until a few weeks before many islanders, save for the younger generation, had never heard of the Waterboys but now their music is to be heard all day in the American Bar which overlooks the pier.

The concert has become a huge co-operative operation for the islanders. They will provide free accommodation for the band and their road crews. The previous day it took four tractor trailers piled high to take the big sound system for the band up from the ferry - it is a fact of life on the island that every single thing must be ferried by boat or by plane.

The affable PJ O Flaharta, better known to people on the mainland as the singer Barry Ronán, admits that he had a hard few weeks of it - as one of the organisers he has had to ensure that everything will run smoothly on the night. One major problem was that the fire regulations for Halla Ronáin meant that only 200 people could use the hall for the 8.30 concert, and a second concert for 11p.m. had to be hastily arranged a few days before hand.

As well as running his Dún Aonghasa restaurant on the day, he will have to prepare a special meal for the band, play twice that night with the support group, The Chancers, and also ensure that the man brought out to tune the piano catches the 9a.m. ferry the next morning, as he is needed in Galway for the Micheál O Súilleabháin concert at lunchtime the next day!

When the first concert is due to begin there is already a sizeable number of people - mostly from the mainland - waiting around outside the small plain Halle Ronáin in the forlorn hope that they might get a ticket to get inside.

On the road to the hall one enterprising young man living on the island is selling tee-shirts for £6.50 emblazoned with pictures of the band and the legend: “The Waterboys, Aran 1989”. He got them made up Galway that morning and they’re selling like hotcakes, he says. He’s also selling cans of softdrinks, which he has kept cool by burying them in Galway and Aran Fisherman Co-op crates that have been packed with ice.

When the first of the two concerts ends crowds begin to filter back to the village. However, no sooner have they arrived at the American Bar when it is suddenly thrust into darkness and closed down within five minutes. Those who work there are all going to the second concert, which will be mainly for the islanders.

The crowd for the second concert file into the hall which is bare and simple inside. There is a stage, a dance floor with bench seating on either side, and a tiny balcony at the back where there is a mineral bar. Indeed, it would not look out of place as a setting for “The Ballroom of Romance”.

For the locals of all ages who have crowded in it will prove to be a memorable night. Though rockier songs like ‘Medicine Bow’ are a little loud for some of the older people the crowd are particularly enthusiastic with the playing of fiddle player Steve Wickham and young Corofin, Co. Clare accordionist Sharon Shannon, as well as the compelling Mike Scott himself, who even plays a solo on the bodhrán at on stage.

The younger people in the audience however seem to know all the songs off by heart and sing along enthusiastically. There is a special reception for Tomás MacEoin who comes on to sing as Gaeilge (in Irish) a song well familiar to the audience: ‘D’eirigh mé ar maidin’ agus chuaigh me ag bleá na mbó”, as well as give a lovely spoken recital of Yeats’ magical poem "The Stolen Child", set to the music by Mike Scott.

At the end of the concert Colie Hernon of the Aran Lifeboat committee, to tumultous cheers, made a simple presentation of a picture and a traditional Aran crios (belt) to each member of the band, as “a token of the gratitude felt by each and every person on the island to you coming out here to play.”

On Friday morning the four tractors laden high with the equipment retraced their route down to the pier and the ‘Seabird’ ferry was reloaded to take the cargo and crew back to Ros a Mhíl (Rossaveal) and then on to Galway by road.

“There’s a bit of a stir on the sea this morning”, said one islander looking out at the sea from the pier, and right enough, once the ferry had passed the lighthouse and the rocks at Oileán an Taoibh, it hit the strong sou’westerly winds and was rocked from side to side by large eight foot waves.

But it was on to Galway, on from the waters and the wild to the town that the band have called their ‘mystical place’. On Sunday in the Fisheries’ Field they played the final concert of the Arts’ Festival to a capacity crowd, and such is the huge popularity of the band in Galway that some people had queued for up to five hours that morning to get one of an extra hundred tickets that had been put on sale.

It had been a hectic week for the band. After arriving back in from Aran on Friday - having joined in a traditional seisiún that had gone on into the wee hours - the charming and full-of-life Sharon Shannon gave a marvellous homecoming concert in the Taibhdhearc Theatre on Saturday afternoon.

Joined for a while by Mike Scott and Steve Wickham, it was however very much her concert, as she showed with her dazzling speed over the keys and expressive playing why she is considered to be the outstanding box player of her generation. Later that night the Waterboys played to a capacity Leisureland crowd who were ecstatic by the end of five encore numbers.

On Sunday night at The Fisheries Field The Waterboys were brilliant. The big top with its grass floor and large area of space beneath the dome almost made it into an open-air affair, and was to be the perfect setting for the concert. Playing a huge array of instruments, mostly acoustic and traditional, the sound they achieved had a startling and alluring effect.

And the buzz created between the musicians on stage was contagious as the audience danced and moved and filled in all the gaps in the music with their own boisterous versions of the choruses.

The Waterboys went through extended version of all the “golden oldies”, ‘The Whole Of The Moon’, ‘Medicine Bow’, ‘A Bang On The Ear’, and also ‘This Is The Sea’ for the first time live in an age, often breaking into riproaring reels in the middle of a song.

There seems to be a special relationship between the playing of Sharon Shannon and Steve Wickham, and the fiddle duet that they played during the evening was fabulous. Indeed the Waterboys could easily be termed a pure traditional band, such is the high quality of musicianship in the band.

There was a huge cheer for Liam O Maoniaí of the Hot House Flowers who arrived on stage sporting a long flaming red beard. He and Scott went into an exuberant tit-for-tat bodhrán duet, and it seemed as they prowled around on stage as if they were stalking one another.

More were to arrive on stage. After Tomás McEoin did his bit four Irish dancers performed a set. Then it was the unlikely figure of Padraig Stevens, former member of the Sawdoctors, who brought a fitting conclusion to a magical night.

He came on stage to sing his own song ‘Streets Of Galway’ with Mike Scott, and it seemed an appropriate tribute from the band to the city for which they have a special affinity. In the fashion of the cast of a play the band and guests linked arms on stage at the end and bowed for the audience. It certainly had been a special night, and if it were a play the band would have got a standing ovation.

But the night was not to end there. Later on at the Warwick Mike Scott again came on stage with the fabulous Sawdoctors to sing with them about baling hay, and Galway-Mayo Connacht finals, and Sylvie Linnane doing the right job on Nicholas English in the All-Ireland semi-final. And afterwards there was another trad seisiúin that went long into the night to end a hectic few days in which na buachaillí uisce had arrived home to their ‘special place’.