We are delighted to announce that emerging Irish songwriting talent David Keenan will take to the stage Upstairs at Dolans on Friday July 13th.
Keenan first came to national attention some years ago when a video was posted online showing him performing in the front seat of a taxi in his native Dundalk.
Since then, the storytelling troubadour has completed a US tour and has been praised as the most promising up-and-coming voice in the Irish folk scene.
Glen Hansard has called Keenan “one of our best…he is extraordinary, it’s our duty to support fine talent when we hear it, see it, experience it”.
Keenan is likened to “a young Artist who uses his lyrics to paint pictures with words on canvases of silence, curating a body of work which is steeped in the poetic tradition of old but delivered in such a way that is entirely his own”.
Keenan has said that he has been obsessed with words and melodies since he was a very young boy and names the works of Behan, Yeats and Wilde as lyrical influences. His musical style has been influenced by the likes of Dylan, Buckley and The Dubliners.
His work has been inspired by the storytelling and character creations of his grandfather who ‘took the boat over the water and gathered tales and tunes of his own, learning his craft and expressing his love of language’.
Keenan has guested with the likes of Mick Flannery, Hothouse Flowers, Damien Dempsey and Glen Hansard and is fast becoming one of Ireland’s most talked about young artists.
His live shows are pitched as visceral, spiritual and communal events ‘where Keenan moves between a one man and his guitar monologue to fronting a band whose sound only acts as a carrier for the songs further solidifying their intent’.
In 2018 Keenan was lauded by Hot Press journalist Pat Carty as ‘the most promising young artist in Ireland without any doubt’.
He is described as ‘the sound of Tim Buckley and Brendan Behan arguing over a few jars, while Kavanagh deals Dylan a suspicious hand of cards, and Anthony Cronin and Jack Kerouac furiously try to scribble it all down’.
2017 saw Keenan release his first single “Cobwebs” through Barrack Street records. The single was praised by critics and contemporaries alike.
Keenan recently wrote that he was back in the studio, “busy writing, recording, scribbling, scratching, throwing paint at a canvas of silence and stripping it back again”.
Tickets for David Keenan Live Upstairs at Dolans are on sale now and can be purchased at www.dolans.ie.