I wrote a full preview of The Young Dubliner’s upcoming Thursday night show in Bloomington that appeared in Friday’s Herald & Review, but this will serve as an extra reminder to take this opportunity to go see an exciting group of Irish and American performers.

The “Young Dubs” are a group I have a fair amount of experience with. I was first exposed to them by Pandora, that wonderful internet music matchmaker, on one of my many Irish/folk-themed stations. I later saw the group perform live as one of the headliners of Chicago’s Irish American Heritage Festival. In the world of Celtic diaspora music (in this case “Celtic rock”), they’re definitely a recognizable name.

It can be hard to get an accurate idea of what a modern diaspora Irish group sounds like, because there are a ton of subgenres. Popular bands like The Dropkick Murphys and Flogging Molly represent the popular “Celtic punk” genre, which is a heavier and louder in its output than what the Young Dubs will produce–namely, a stew of rock-adapted traditional tunes and pop-tinged originals. This is a pretty good indication, as probably my favorite song of theirs.

 

They also dabble more into traditional Irish music than many of their Celtic rock contemporaries, as they do in this spritely tune.

 

As ever, when St. Patrick’s Day rolls around, audiences in central Illinois will have a choice between a number of bigger-name Irish groups to see. And while I do find it extremely annoying the way this brand of music is treated as a novelty and trotted out once a year when it’s “thematically acceptable,” that doesn’t mean I won’t take advantage of them being here for the only time this calendar year.

The major choices this year seem to break down to Bloomington, Champaign and Decatur, in order of appearances.

– The Young Dubs perform in Bloomington on Thursday night, at the Bloomington Center for the Performing Arts. All tickets appear to be $25. I’ve already described their musical style.

– Chicago Irish punk rockers The Tossers perform at Champaign’s Cowboy Monkey a week from now, on the night of Monday, March 14. These guys have a much harder edge than the Young Dubs, and personally aren’t a favorite of mine. I find their volume has a tendency to mask any of their Irish instrumentation behind a wall of sound, and despite them being one of the original Irish punk groups (and they are), the Celtic aspect of the group has always seemed more of a marketing hook than anything. Tickets are $12.

NOTE: I just saw that The Tossers are also playing the next day, March 15, at Bloomington’s Castle Theatre. Tickets are $12 again.

– Finally, Decatur will play host to all-Ireland fiddle champion Eileen Ivers and her band Immigrant Soul at the Kirkland Fine Arts Center. Curiously, this show actually comes AFTER St. Patrick’s Day on the afternoon of Sunday, March 20. I actually just got off a phonecall with Ivers, so look for the full preview in your Friday, March 18 copy of the Herald & Review. Her music is a truly unique fusion of traditional and strange influences like American soul music. It doesn’t sound like it would work, but it does. Tickets are $12-24.

Those are your options–a newspaper office in-joke would be to say “choose your band wisely.” After all, it may be a year before a band featuring a fiddler passes this way again.