At a packed, sold out Whelans, Junior Brother thrilled the crowd alongside support band The Bonk. The project is led by Waterford musician Phil Christie (O Emperor), who’s first recordings were undertaken and captured live a Big Skin Studios in Cork City
The Bonk (click on thumbnail for full view)
Borrowing a term used to describe a state of mental and physical collapse, The Bonk often used layered competing rhythms in a way that tends towards estrangement from the familiar. Time and time again, The Bonk played (upon) ideas of time and repetition, repetition and time. Judging by the venue, which filled up early, and the crowd response, they are very much a band on the up, receiving loud cheers and applause after each song. They only played a relatively short 30 minute, all from their album except one song introduced as a new song.
Junior Brother, the project of alternative folk singer-songwriter Ronan Kealy, followed on, the County Kerry man named after a character in the Elizabethan play The Revenger’s Tragedy. He ripped through a sweat of songs from his back catalogue, which were lapped up by the appreciative crowd, who loved every minute.
