A life filled with music
HE STARTED PLAYING MUSIC AT SEVEN YEARS OF AGE AND IT’S A PASSION SHANE MITCHELL HAS NURTURED OVER THE YEARS. HE TALKS TO SINEAD HEALY ABOUT LIFE WITH DERVISH AND SLIGO LIVE.
HARD WORK, passion and a strong local creative culture is what Shane Mitchell co- founder of Sligo Live puts down to the success of the Trad and Indie festival as it returns for its twelfth year to Sligo. Since 2005 the festival has highlighted Sligo’s vibrant contemporary music scene and rich musical heritage intermingled with global stars and as well as gaining an international reputation.
Shane is a native of Sligo and also founding member of the long- standing Sligo trad band Dervish, who are known worldwide.
The band, which includes lead singer Cathy Jordan, has recently come back from a ten date concert tour in the UK and are currently working on a new album that is due for release next year.
Shane added: “I am really enjoying what the band are doing these days, we don’t do as much touring as we did years ago but what we do are all good quality shows. We were very honoured to sign a new record deal last year with Rounder Records in America. It is our most challenging album to date but it should be significant when it’s completed.”
With just over 24 hours to go before the launch of the 12th annual festival Shane explains how he first became involved with Sligo Live: “Many years ago I met a group of local politicians from Sligo in America who were out promoting the region. They said Sligo needed a festival so we stayed up very late one night and the concept of Sligo Live was born.
“We brought the discussions home and people like Tommie Gorman from RTE, Philip Flynn from the old Ballisodare festival and of course my great and very skilled co- producer of Sligo Live, Rory O’Connor, rolled in. We started developing a festival and it took nearly 18 months to set up. It was a team effort from the start and a labour of love.”
His time with Dervish has allowed him to play at some of the biggest festivals in the world from Glastonbury to Rock the Rio, so he has the knowledge of what makes a festival work: “I have been very lucky to have exposure to so much. I remember being in Munich years ago with Dervish and d picking up a Discover Ireland booklet with nothing showing up over Galway.
“As a passionate Sligo man, it was very frustrating to see, but it’s very di different now. I hope Sligo Live has influencedin people to take the DIY approachap by encouraging people to workw in partnership.
“I do believe Sligo is now singing toWC City together Sligo in tune project more in than time it we used will to. With our plans to develop The Music becomebe the music stop on the Wild AtlanticAt Way.”
Having started playing instruments at the age of 7, Shane went on to learn theth Accordion from the legendary Sligo AccordionA player Alphie Joe Dineen.
From a very young age Shane frequ quently found himself drawn to local sessionsse as well as competing with regularre success in competitions.
While his heart lies in traditional m music and he looks forward to trad pubpu sessions Shane admits that his i involvement in Sligo Live has meant that he doesn’t get to watch every show: “I am usually too busy to see anything. I think the only full concert I saw at Sligo Live over the years was The Buena Vista Social club in 2007. It was stunningly good. I do like King Kong Company.”
The festival has been taking place yearly since 2005 but it hasn’t always been smooth sailing as Shane tells me that there was difficulty in securing funding for this year’s festival: “It’s an absolute nightmare and it’s a miracle that we are having a festival at all.
The local authorities need to be taking more responsibility towards the festival it’s probably the only large scale marketing project we have in the region. We were very proud this year when Sky Arts did a feature on Sligo Live to over a million UK viewers - you cannot buy that type of publicity.
“For the last two years we have strived to develop a Festival Village in the centre of town, something that has never been done before.
“We fell short on the finances as we could not raise the money locally. It was a very small amount of money which was disappointing given the fact that Sligo Live has brought in so much revenue to the region over the past number of years plus the positive publicity.
“It’s no surprise that visitor figures are significantly up this year in Sligo during the summer.”
Thousands of music fans are expected to flock to the town over the six- day period with the highlights of the festival including Rodrigo Y Gabriela, Little Green Cars, The Saw Doctors and many more.
While there are platforms for the bigger acts, Arrivals is a concept of the festival as Shane puts it ‘ a festival within a festival’ which has rapidly grown in years and offers new talent a platform in some cases for the very first time.
Before the 2016 festival has even begun work has already started on Sligo Live 2017 where details will soon be announced of an international music conference as part of next year’s festival.
“We are working very positively and productively with Eva Deery and Fáilte Ireland on all this and we will be announcing details soon.”
Shane believes that Sligo will play a big part in the future as a hub for Musical tourism for the West.
“Music Destination Tourism is massive worldwide in turn for developing jobs in the Creative Industries.
“Given Sligo’s Creative Culture we now have a massive opportunity here to bring home our youth and create an independently strong community in Sligo for future generations.
“Sligo Live has been so positive, people are now taking it into their own hands and getting stuck in. Sligo Live belongs to the people of Sligo and the extended Sligo family at home and abroad.
“People now see Sligo Live can deliver so much for Sligo via the people themselves.
“We are encouraging people to personally promote Sligo Live online.
“The Sligo Leader Partnership has become centre to this and are now the pulse of Sligo Live, much credit has to go to Chris Gonley and Pat Kilcoyne from Leader for this,” Shane commented.