Dubliners' legend continues at Horsham's Capitol under a different name

“We had a gig last night in Arbroath,” says band member Sean Cannon, “and a lady beside the theatre tripped and banged her head. She was in her ’80s, and the paramedics were saying they wanted to take her away. But she insisted ‘I want to see the concert!’, and so they got one of the medical people to sit with her. We met her afterwards. She had a big lump in the middle of her forehead.”

“That’s the kind of people we attract!” Sean laughs.

The band now heads to Horsham’s Capitol on Friday, February 12 (7.30pm, £23).

The band’s line-up is Sean plus Eamonn Campbell, Gerry O’Connor and Paul Watchorn. Sean and Eamonn were members of The Dubliners for close to 30 years while Gerry joined them for the final part of their 50th anniversary tour.

Effectively, Sean came in because of Luke Kelly’s deteriorating health. He had a brain tumour, which would kill him.

“That took him away in January 1984. But I was in the band from 1982 because he was too unwell to travel. He had an operation in 1983 that relieved the pressure, but it was not totally operable. It gave him a bit of a lease of life until he took bad again in the autumn and had to give up. I thought I was just going to be three weeks in the band until he got better. I was 30 years.”

Another crisis for the band came in 2012 with the death of Barney McKenna: “He passed away in April, and we did the commitments that we had for the rest of the year. We got Gerry in as a replacement, but what happened was that there was then only one original member of the band left, and that was John Sheahan. In that period after Barney died, John decided that he was going to retire after 50 years on the road, which was quite reasonable. The rest of us decided that we would carry on and give it a go, and that’s what we did.

“We changed the name from The Dubliners to The Dublin Legends. To be honest, there were no original members left, and we didn’t want to a tribute band, so we started again with a new name.”

Audiences can expect classics, including ‘Whiskey in The Jar’, ‘Dirty Old Town’, ‘The Wild Rover’, ‘Seven Drunken Nights’ and many more. Call 01403 750220 or visit www.thecapitolhorsham.com.

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