Womad

Sharon Shannon Big Band feat Shane MacGowan, Damien Dempsey & Mundy

Celebrated accordionist hosts her celebrity friends

Renowned as the queen of the accordion, Sharon Shannon has been expanding the horizons of traditional Irish music for almost two decades now, collaborating with artists like Steve Earle, The Waterboys and Jackson Browne as well as performing sell-out shows with her own big band. This evening's ceilidh looks set to be one of the highlights of the weekend, an experimental show aiming to recreate those sessions that take place in clubs and pubs around Ireland every night of the year. Sharon's band provides the backing throughout with various guest musicians and singers popping on and off stage at various intervals. And these singers aren't your common-or-garden warblers, neither. How about the chief Pogue himself, Shane MacGowan? Or another champion of Irish traditional music, one Damien Dempsey? And leave room at the mic too for Mundy who recently enjoyed a huge hit in Ireland re-recording, with Sharon, Steve Earle's Galway Girl. If all these individual cameos are too much to handle, how on earth are you going to cope with everyone coming together for a riotous, dance-happy finale?

Biog by Rob Williams