Meet the newbie!

Julian is now settled in Hong Kong, and we wish him well... but how about the rest of the band? Where are we at? And what about you lot? When can you expect to see us play again...?

Well, let's waste no time in introducing the new boy... hailing from Belfast, this young man (yes, the average age of the band just dropped) is a dab hand at playing celtic tunes on the 6-string guitar as well as a solid bassist - which makes him perfect to fit into the shoes of our last Belfast-born, 6-stringer-celtic-playing bass player! And what incredibly appropriate Irish / celtic sounding name does this lad go by? Please welcome... Ignacio Calumarte!

Well, yes... he's half-Spanish, so maybe we'll get some more Mediterranean flavour to a few tunes! For the moment, though, we've all been in the rehearsal studio getting back up to speed on your old favourites - and I can say that Iggy is fitting right in! So you can expect more of the same - but slightly different - next time you see us...

...and when will that be? Well, how about you come down to Prince of Wales, 101 Dunlop Street, to see Iggy in his official band debut on Friday September 14th!

We'll see you soon!

Farewell gig... this coming Saturday!

It is with sadness that we announce the imminent departure of Julian O'Connell, our bass player. His professionalism and level head (not to mention his talent!) played a huge part in getting the full-band up and running earlier this year, and he will be sorely missed. We wish him and the family well in Hong Kong.... and look forward to him booking us a tour there next year!! (hint, hint)

Initially it looked like we would not get an official final gig with Julian as all our dates were incompatible... but fortune favours fools like us and thanks to the last minute cancellation of a band at Prince of Wales, Little India, we now have the perfect opportunity to give Julian a rousing send-off!

We also bid farewell to our official photographer, who is moving to Dubai. Lisa did such a fantastic job of making us all look so good that people often don't even recognise us in the flesh!! You can see her work plastered all over this site, including the one of Julian to the left. We wish her, Barry and the kids all the best, and hope to be playing in Dubai's Irish Village for them sometime soon! (again - hint, hint)

So... we will be back with a new bassist later in the year, but don't miss the opportunity to come down and see this lineup of Gan Ainm - the original full-band lineup - one last time!

Prince of Wales, 101 Dunlop Street, Little India
Saturday 30th June from 10pm
Be there or be an equilateral rectangle.

And now for something completely different...

We all love playing music together, but there is more to us than simply being Singapore's #1 Celtic band! There is even more to us than drinking copious amounts of alcohol!

Next week The Stage Club of Singapore presents Bram Stoker's Dracula at the DBS Arts Centre. What has that got to do with Gan Ainm, I hear you ask? Well, the incidental music has been written and recorded by our guitarist, Miles McLean, and Dracula is being played by none other than Alexander Gow, our fiddle and mandola player! That's him as you have never seen him before in the picture to the right...

Some of you may know that Alex's background is in theatre, but this will be his first time acting on stage in over 10 years! He has now mastered speaking with his fangs, and alongside the rest of the talented cast he is raring to go...

The show is on from 23rd-26th May and tickets are available at SISTIC (click here to go direct to event).

We hope a few of you can make it down to see another side of our band members... we are not just one-trick ponies, we do have some bite! (Groan!)

We wish some weekends would never end...

(l) On stage at PoW; (r) dancers at Muddy Murphy's

What a great weekend that was... thanks to all of you who came down, drank like fish, danced like maniacs and generally had a grand old time!

If anyone has any photos or videos of either gig, we would love you to share them with us. You can email them to ganainm.sg@gmail.com or post them on our Facebook page.

We'll be taking a break for a few weeks, but watch out for us back in July... see you then!

The Boys Are Back In Town!

Have you missed us? We've missed you! Hard to believe it hasn't even been a full two months since St. Patrick's, yet so much has been going on since then. We may have seen a few of you at gigs by other bands we are variously part of... or maybe at the theatre production Paul recently directed... or maybe just down the pub for a pint! But this will be the first time you will have seen the seven of us back together again, and we are looking forward to having a right old knees up with you all!

This weekend we have two opportunities to folk you up! The first (Saturday 12th, 10pm) is at the Prince of Wales in Little India and is somewhat dangerously sponsored by Jagermusic, so be prepared for many, many Jagerbombs. The second (Sunday 13th, 6pm) is back down at the scene of our big week two months back, Muddy Murphy's. Two fantastic venues, so it should be one hell of a weekend!

We must thank those kind fellas at Jagermeister and PacBev for their support - so please "like" their Facebook page at  http://www.facebook.com/Jagermeister.SG !!!

Cheers all, and see you over the weekend!

And.... relax!

To all of you who came down and danced, sang along, cheered - thank you! That was a week that won't be forgotten in a hurry!

Muddy's had it's best ever night (on 17th itself), and as for the band? Well, we were simultaneously pumped up and yet humbled by your enthusiasm and support. A couple of technical hiccups aside, we loved every second, and the reaction we got on Saturday in particular was simply amazing!

To the many friends of the band who were there, it was great to see you... to the many, many more strangers that were there, consider yourselves friends* now! And to those who didn't make it......? Well, there will always be another year...

And lastly, let us not forget a mention for the tireless staff at Muddy's, without whom the week would not have been so well lubricated!!!!!




*New friends - if you want more info on future gigs or anything else band-related you can get it in many ways: add your email address into the box at the top right of this page for website updates; add Gan Ainm as a friend on Facebook; join the Gan Ainm group on Facebook; follow the band on Twitter

Happy St. Pat's!

Wherever you are in the world, we hope you are raising your glass with us as we say....

Sláinte!

It's 3.15am and we are all heading home for some shut-eye... before making our way back to Muddy Murphy's again in the afternoon for the full-on St. Pat's celebrations!

See you there.....!