Singer and radio personality Marc Roberts was surprised and honoured to be invited to be the Grand Marshal in the recent St Patrick’s Day parade in Denver, Colarado.
Roberts, who presents a popualr radio show on Galway Bay fm has long been a fan of John Denver, having staged several awardwinning musical tributes to the Colorado singer. So when the invite came to perofrm in Denver, Marc jumped at the opportunity.
However, more was to follow when news of his arrival in Colorado was broken to the Irish community who were thrilled to have an irish Eurovision star in their midst. They made arrangements to invite him to share the duties of Grand Marshal at the event, in front of 250,000 people, where joined Galwaywoman Michelle Mulhaire at the froint oif the parade.
“As you are aware over the last number of years I've paid tribute to the music of John Denver all over Ireland and the U.K. Needless to say I was delighted when the invitation arrived to perform in Denver, Colorado.
“Michelle Mulhaire, from Galway, who is a member of the group 'The Bridies', who were performing in Denver over the St. Patrick's festival, alerted the organisers to me and my website.
“The Bridies' are well established in a number of U.S. cities, so we were both honoured to receive the invitation to be Grand Marshals at this year’s St. Patrick's Day parade.
“It is one of the biggest parades in the United States and was attended by approximately 250,000 people. The main event,'The Green Tie Ball', was on the night of the parade. During that day the sound check was a surreal experience for me personally......singing the songs of John Denver while staring out at the the Rocky Mountains!
“Later that night, I got to perform some of my own songs and the song's of John Denver to a capacity audience. Later, I met numerous people there knew John, his family, played golf with him,” he said.
As a result of the Colorado concert, US promoters are planning a Marc Roberts John Denver tribute in Denver’s home town of Aspen. To get ready for the concert, Marc kicks off a new series of gigs in a Salthill venue at the end of this month.
