Husband and wife duo of Michael Trotter Jr. and Tanya AKA The War and Treaty brought their Blues/Soul to Dublin’s Whelan’s and they rocked the house.
Opening the night was Paddy Keyes hailing from Sligo and only new to the gig circuit in Dublin tell us at one point that this is his first Dublin support slot, second song in he has to borrow a guitar as his wasn’t being corporative. This didn’t faze him at all and on he went with his five song set and by the sounds of it he has won over a few fans from the night.
He was accompanied by a keyboard player and guitarist, also telling us he has just released his debut single two months back, called Tomorrow.
The minute The War and Treaty graced the stage of Whelan’s you could feel the love fill the room, its as clear as day that both Michael & Tanya as madly in love from their on stage expressions of devotion for each other with embraces and long deep gazes at each other.
Opening with their debut single Hi Ho one knew this is going to be a special night, and that it was! following up with Country Fried Steak where there was a little guitar solo, after this Tanya said she was going to ask a question and that was are you ready to love Dublin and it was straight into yep you guessed it Are You Ready to Love.
At this point Michael introduced themselves and telling’s us that they are a couple and 12 years married also asking the crowd to move forward so they could fell them and the love. He also thank the crowd for being there as they could have been anywhere else but are here tonight.
It was a couple of new songs next and crowd were asked to be honest about what they thought of them The Best Thing That I Have / Blank Page which the crowd duly let them know what they thought with loud cheers and claps and a shout of yep they’re keepers, Next up was On The Patio, near the end of which the drummer was introduced as he lead into the next song Hey Pretty Moon and Michael dedicated this to his brother from another mother Paddy Keyes.
Next up was Hay Pretty Moon, remember earlier I mentioned how we could see how much in love Michael and Tanya are well here it really! shined as they embraced and stared deeply into each others eyes for a long time and if I’m not mistaken Tanya was clearly emotional.
Instead of leaving the stage here the band huddled for a brief moment and it was on with the encore. its here were the I think deviated from the set list as somebody from the crowd shouted Somebodies Child and Michael responded with yep lets play that. It was here where the whole band got an introduction and the played Jeep Cherokee Laredo which got extended with a gospel eques performance with Michael and Tanya leaving the stage to go throughout the crowd bumping firsts and shaking hands, Michael managing to get basically everyone in the crowd. So back up on stage and they finished out with Five More Minutes which again turned into a party.
The band left the stage but weren’t let stay off for long and had to come back out for another, which comprised of a medley of songs, containing Everything I do (Bryan Adams) RSVP (Five Star?) were two I caught and there was some improv also and that was it.
A fantastic night of Rock/Blues/Soul was had by all. COME BACK SOON GUYS!
