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Dubliners: Göteborg, Sweden - April 29, 2006

You can't please everybody, that's a known fact, and we prove it today. We report about two reviews of the Göteborg gig; the first one by Magnus Vasell can be read in full (and, mind you, in Swedish) by clicking here. Under the headline 'Good guys with love for the tradition', Magnus starts to offer The Best (The public responce to Dirty Old Town) and The Worst (Why is it so hard to turn off the mobile phones?) of the show in his opinion. He goes on kind of complaining that they have become somewhat older during the past 44 years (Gosh!) and that he expected more musical highlights; he aknowledges in the end that '[...] still is it an adventure to see the Dubliners. There is still a powerful, immortal, love to the music and the tradition.' About the 'missing highlights' in the program, he elaborates, and closes with a conciliatorily comment:

What should be in between are songs straight to the heart, but that occurs too seldom. But sometimes it does occur. And really strong too. As when the original member Barney M. [...] starts his banjo playing. There is power enough to run a small factory [...]. And when the old men together and with help from the audience go through the classics, the distance from the pub with foaming beer to the concert hall isn't far. And it is in that moment the expression 'Good old guys' suddenly gets a new meaning.

We now move to the second Göteborg review we got: It was posted at the Pogues forum by user Hellbeard and you would believe he was at a different show, but he wasn't:

I had one of the greatest evenings of my life. One I will never forget. It took place in the beautiful Göteborg concert hall. And The Dubliners (closing in on their 70ies) played for over 3 hours with a 20 minute break in the middle - for tea and cake, they said. The new guy, Patsy Watchorn, did an amazing job and kind of reminded me about Luke Kelly with all the charisma, his great voice and the 5 string banjo. It was very apparent he brought alot of energy into the band. The audience was very mixed.. and well.. there was alot of Pogues, Flogging Molly and Dropkick Murphy's shirts around. Bottomline is that I think The Dubliners only get better with the years. It really struck me what virtuosity Eamonn, John and Barney have on their instrument. And Patsy put alot of freshness into the band. I guess I should mention Sean as well - he sings very pretty in Irish and has a great charisma.. May they go on greying and playing for many years to come!

Let us close the Göteborg chapter by adding that Patsy remembers the gig vividly and that he was thrilled by the excitement of the crowd of 800. There are more fan comments about the tour in our guestbook. And if you're done there and still need more, you can find more Patsy and Dubliners reviews in our archives.

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