Last Saturday local songwriters Deborah McKeown, Pete Duffy, and Eddie Keenan (and surprise duo Fergal Cox and Ross McDonald ) played to a packed house at the latest AMP gig in The Shack pub.
Eddie Keenan, taking a break from his Driftwood Manor project, treated the crowd to some impressive, newly penned songs, proving the popular songwriter is still at the top of his game, producing some of the most compelling new music out there.
Eddie was followed by flamenco-meets-rock songwriter Pete Duffy who provided a good hour of articulated, impressive original material. Pete weaves impassioned lyrical content through quick time changes, machine-gun strumming and unusually structured songs.
The headline act of the night was Deborah McKeown who proved she is one to watch with her strong, contralto vocals, and equally strong composition skills. Deborah is truly an original, skirting the fringes of classification with a good variety of melodic, memorable material. Coming from a background as a piano teacher, this multi-instrumentalist is able to manifest her musical inclinations on the guitar in a way that guitar-bound composers often don't. One truly gets the feeling that Deborah's songs would shine through, regardless of what instrument she chose to realise them on. Halfway through her set she was joined by local vocal instructor Andrea Sacchi, whose well-trained voice added a wonderful richness to Deborah's songs.
A surprise was waiting for those who stuck around after the concert when Fergal Cox and Ross McDonald appeared to play a lively encore performance, much to the delight of the music-hungry audience.
