February 18, 1999
Irish Rovers to bring Celtic music to Ritz
By Christine Brucker
Staff Writer
Celtic music is in the air. The popularity of ''Riverdance'' has kicked off a new love of traditional Irish and Celtic music. Many are now coming to love a form of music that long has been associated with St. Patrick's Day, Ireland and drinking.
The Ritz Theatre will help Tiffin celebrate St. Patrick's Day a little early this year with The Irish Rovers. Now entering their fourth decade of entertainment, The Irish Rovers welcome the new audience the Celtic resurgence has brought them.
The lineup of the Irish Rovers includes original members and new recruits. Geroge Millar (guitar, vocals), cousin Joe Millar (bass, vocals), and Wilcil Mcdowell (accordian, keyboards) are the original members. The recruits include John Reynolds (guitar, whistle and vocals), and Sean O'Driscoll (mandolin, banjo, guitar and vocals). Rounding out the band is Kevin McKeown (drums, bodran, bones and vocals).
The band formed in 1964 as a weekend thing, George Millar says.
''I was in high school and we would play on the weekends,'' he said. ''We earned enough money to buy cigarettes and beer and we thought it was a good thing.''
After playing weekends for two years, they decided to work at music full time. They gave themselves a year to see how it would work.
''We decided to give it a year of our lives,'' Millar said. ''After about two years, we decided to keep going with it.''
They toured the United States during the '60s at the height of the folk craze. They would play folk clubs in California, travel through the South, then up the East coast then west again back to California.
After years at this pace, the Irish Rovers graduated form playing clubs and taverns to playing in theaters.
''We like playing in the theaters,'' Millar said. ''It gives us more versatility. We can talk to the audience, read some poetry, tell jokes and do more types of songs. In the pubs, people want to hear only the up tempo songs.''
One of the songs that has brought new fans to the Irish Rovers is ''The Unicorn.'' The song, about the extinction of the unicorn, was not even written by the band.
''It was a poem written by Shel Silverstein,'' he said. ''We started reciting it at our shows and everyone in the pub would be quiet for this little poem about a unicorn. It didn't have a tune to it when we started. We wrote the tune to it and have been playing it ever since.''
After 30 years of writing and performing, The Irish Rovers show no signs of slowing down. They recently released a new CD, ''Come Fill Up Your Glass,'' and are at work on two more projects including a Christmas album.
Audiences can expect a mix of old and new material with a healthy dose of jokes, commentary and traditional music.
''Some of the words are 200 to 300 years old,'' Millar said. ''Some of the tunes may be over 800 years old but people have never heard them before.''
The Irish Rovers take the stage at 8 p.m. Tuesday March 9. Contact the box office at 448-8544 for tickets and further information.