Wonderful reviews have followed Delorentos acoustic tour, it has been an amazing and exciting experience for audience and band. Limerick Post talked to guitarist Kieran McGuinness.
by Eric FitzGerald
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DELORENTOS from Portrane, Co Dublin, have been a band since 2005 but the four piece, Kieran, Ross, Ro and Níall have been friends and neighbours for many years before that. In the last ten years, this band of brothers has released four critically acclaimed albums, winning the Choice Music Prize in 2012 with ‘Little Sparks’.
Delorentos have had hit records here and in Spain, toured the UK, Europe and North America. They have been signed to a major label, dropped, broke up, reformed, gone independent, set up pop-up record shops, signed a major deal for their current release ‘Night Becomes Light’. They will embark on their first tours of Mexico and South America, head back to the UK and Germany and will do a lot of festivals in 2016.
Guitarist Kieran McGuinness spoke to Limerick Post.
“I don’t think we have released our best album yet, we haven’t played our best gigs yet and I don’t think we are as big as we will be.”
Those are not the words of a flash in the pan celebrity longing to be famous but are the expression of a quiet confidence from a craftsman making and sharing great music, melodies and stories. Delorentos have developed from their beginnings as an indie guitar band through their four albums.
“You always want to get better and develop as a band. There is a thing about music and the music scene. When you start out you do a certain amount of music that you should do and you act a certain sort of a way that you should act. But when you write more and release a bit more, the boundaries start to fall away a bit and you do your best stuff when that happens.”
Delorentos most recent album ‘Night Becomes Light’ went straight into the Irish top five. It is their most critically acclaimed record yet with catchy singles ‘Show Me Love’ and ‘Forget The Numbers’ getting consistent radioplay.
The Home Again Tour playing Limerick this Saturday is their most ambitious acoustic tour so far with new arrangements of songs from across all four albums. Special guests Maud In Cahoots will be aiding and abetting the renditions.
Reviews of Delorentos’ Home Again show in Dublin’s National Concert Hall in November have been ecstatic. The songs have been stripped back with the musicians swapping instruments and giving their wonderfully crafted songbook a new context. One of their most touching songs ‘Petardu’ is stripped back, the plaintive piano led rendition performed in pin-drop silence is one high point in the show, as is ‘Bullet in a Gun’, also from The Choice Prize winning album. An acoustic rendition of ‘Bullet in a Gun’ by the band in a Spanish backstreet hours after the song was written will give you a good idea of what the Home Again show will be like. (On YouTube May 2011).
“It was an amazing feeling at the National Concert Hall, we were exhausted afterwards,” Kieran remembers.
“We have put a lot of work into it. We don’t take our audience for granted so we poured over it. The dynamics are more extreme. There are points where the band is pin-drop quiet and at other times, it is more impactful, loud and big. The show is exciting and scary and when it works it can give you an elation, which is an amazing feeling.”
The band is already working through the demo stages of the next album, and will record wherever and whenever they can in a busy 2016.
The current acoustic tour has had a huge impact on the band creatively, familiar favourites sound very fresh and new again as the band changes keys, swaps instruments and takes turns to lead the songs. And they are clearly getting a great rapport with audiences nationwide.
“You never want to get to the point in a band where you are running on autopilot. We will never be as exposed and as open as we are at those acoustic shows. You are really in tune with everything. You are really hearing everything, the pace and the euphoria you are creating. The audience are very connected to it so when it really clicks in, there are moments of joy to connect with.”
Delorentos spent the summer playing the festival circuit in Ireland as well as dipping a toe in London’s live circuit and played shows in Canada. They have just returned from one of their regular tours in Spain where the quartet is getting ever more popular.
‘Night Becomes Light’ is the fourth full studio album from Delorentos, debuting in the top five in the Irish album charts on its 2014 release. The album followed up to the critically acclaimed and ground breaking winner of the Meteor Choice Music Prize, ‘Little Sparks’.
‘Night Becomes Light’ has already spawned three catchy radio earworms so far in the Dexy’s inspired ’Forget The Numbers’, ‘Show Me Love’ and current single, ‘Everybody Else Gets Wet’.
Delorentos’ Home Again Tour plays at Lime Tree Theatre this Saturday December 12. Support come from the highly rated Dublin band Maud In Cahoots who will join Delorentos on stage for some songs.
