Recollections: Brídín
From air-harping to stage-invasions, recount some of Sligo harpist Brídín’s favourite concert memories.
For most music-lovers, gigs are where we want to go and where we want to be right now. The thrill of stepping across the threshold, the bright lights, the communal sense of elation. Inside our brains and hearts we hold vast collections of memories that deserve a quiet moment to reflect upon. Recollections is a space for your favourite artists and music-makers to do just that. This week, West County Sligo’s Brídín chooses two of her fondest concert-going memories.
Knockanstockan
Brídín: I saw The Scratch play at Knockanstockan about three years ago. They were on main stage absolutely killing it as always. They called upon any Irish dancers in the crowd and of course my friends pushed me up and I ended up Irish dancing on the stage. I crowd surfed my way back to my friends. They were about half way up the arena. That was epic, such a bit of dancing!
Florence & The Machine
Brídín: I got to see Florence and The Machine play Electric picnic in 2019 on the same day I played at picnic for the first time. I absolutely love her and have had it on my bucket list for years to see her live. Everything from instrumentation to her amazing stage presence and voice was amazing and blew my expectations out of the park. The production on stage was amazing. For an outdoor gig where they had to set up so many instruments from scratch, it was mad how well all of them instruments and Florence sounded. I was singing and air-harping the whole lot. She must have ran and danced around the length of the stage thirty times, I don’t know how she can keep spinning around in circles and not get dizzy; there could be a FÁS [government training/apprenticeship] course in that. One small negative about the whole thing was the amount of young lads in ski gear drinking cans and giving out about the gig – they didn’t know any of the songs, but must have been waiting only for Sweet Nothing. I was on my boyfriend’s shoulders for the whole thing because I’m so small, poor Noel! Hands down, the most magic gig I was ever at!
Ocean of Stars, the captivating debut EP from harpist Brídín, is available now from bridin.bandcamp.com.
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