Tommy Sands' incredible Concert

His voice, his words, his tunes. It's hard to tell which is more compelling. Perhaps it's the way all three seem to go together so well; a sort of synergy of emotion and music; synesthesia for sure. His song "There Were Roses" has been my favorite song to sing with my band since it first appeared around 1985. He sung it last Tuesday and even though he has changed the names of the two main characters the song still has to be the best song for peace ever written. "An eye for an eye 'til everyone is blind".

The concert opened with the incredible Irish dancing of the McFadden Academy of Dance which concluded with the most remarkable a capella Irish dance, something I've never seen before. Tommy then took the stage with his son Fionan and entertained us with songs, stories and videos. One video in particular was of an old country bus driving along the Ryan Road that figures in many of his songs. There was also a video of him singing in Sarajevo with  Vedran Smailovic, the great cellist and  peace activist from Sarajevo. And here is probably the best version ever of Pete Seeger's, Where Have All The Flowers Gone.

But it was his stories of growing up on a small farm in Ireland and his experiences during "Thc Troubles" that made his message and his songs so inspiring.