The key of Celtic
Young Dubliners play rock with Irish flavor
Keith Roberts doesn’t get to see too many sunrises. Yet for the past couple of days, he’s been up early and doing press for radio stations, which has allotted him this opportunity.
“I remember how beautiful they are,” he says with a laugh. “Though my body doesn’t really know what to do this early.”
Roberts is a member of the Celtic rock band Young Dubliners.
For nearly 30 years, the band has beautifully blended Irish traditional instruments with modern rock, in turn, carving out a niche for them in the music industry.
And with nine albums, the band is looking forward to No. 10.
Young Dubliners released the album “9” nearly two years ago and has been trying to find time for some new material.
“Touring is so intense,” he says. “You don’t have a lot of time for writing. What we need to do is lock ourselves into a room and just work on new material. We’ve been talking about doing another Irish tribute album. Our first one was one of our most successful. And not to look a gift horse in the mouth, but a Volume 2 will be even better.”
The band members have been working on music alone and will bring it to the band later this summer.
“We have these songs with strange names,” he says. “One of the songs on the last album, ‘Up in the Air’ was originally called ‘Lead Singer on Drugs.’ I guess this is the way they thought I sounded. But we have fun with all of the music.”
The Young Dubliners’ return to Albuquerque once again has them playing at the ABQ BioPark Zoo.
Roberts says it’s one of his favorite venues. “We’ve played there twice before and have had record numbers at the shows,” he says. “I posted the other day on social media that at the Albuquerque zoo, it’s an audience that understands us and every now and then some humans come to our performance. When we play the zoo, we can actually hear the animals making noise. It’s beautiful.”