ACCLAIMED Brisbane-based band Asleep at the Reel will be bring their brand of Celtic hi-jinks back to Redlands on Sunday to celebrate St Patrick’s Day.
Led by Mark Cryle (Spot the Dog, Murphy’s Pigs) Asleep at the Reel evoke the sound of the lively Irish pub, of flying fiddles and rich voices in harmony around an open fire.
Their songs are stories - some of them hundreds of years old - wrapped up in music.
Their rollicking jigs and reels will keep your feet tapping.
The Irish call it the craic. It’s a word that means music and fun and, typically, quite a lot of the demon drink all bound up together.
As well as playing all of your Irish favourites, the band will feature songs from both their debut CD The Emerald Dream and Cryle’s acclaimed CD Sideshow Alley, including the song Kalgoorlie Girl which is regularly heard on Bay FM.100.3.
Asleep at the Reel is no one man show. Mick Nolan (Pop Properly, Eureka) shares the vocal duties with Mark and adds the bass lines.
Hugh Curtis (Troy Cassar-Daley, Lee Kernaghan and Beccy Cole) is one of Australia’s most in demand fiddle and mandolin players both on the concert stage and in the recording studio.
Rose Broe (Pirate Brides, Shebeen) is another veteran of the Queensland folk music scene.
Suzanne Hibbs (Peter Cupples, Sadie & Jay) lays down the grooves on which the whole delicious blend sits.
Yet Asleep at the Reel are not Irish – nor do they pretend to be. They are Australian yet, like so many Australians, Celtic music is in their DNA.
They take this Celtic blend from its roots in the peat-smoked pubs of Ireland and Scotland, from the kitchen, the hearth, the veranda and the shearing shed all the way to the stage. There they throw in a little backbeat just for the fun of it.
Asleep at the Reel will play at Cleveland Tavern, 22/28 Shore Street West, Cleveland on Sunday, March 17 from 4pm. Admission is free.