Tom Dunne: I really don't get this Wolfe Tones revival
Brian Warfield and the Wolfe Tones.
During the days immediately after the Good Friday agreement, there was a general nervousness that it might all be too good to be true.
The IRA still had its weapons. A man called General John De Chastelain was charged with decommissioning them.
Wags at the time joked: “It won’t be over until he decommissions the Wolfe Tones.” Who is laughing now?
The answer to that question would appear to be the Wolfe Tones themselves. Laughing, as we like to say, “all the way to the bank.”
A 3Arena show has just been announced. I expect it and further dates will sell out too. Suddenly, the Island of Ireland cannot get enough of Brian, Tommy, and Noel.
If it’s too much for you, you can always take comfort in drink. They have their own whiskey, Wolfe Tones’ Rebel Irish. You could knock a few back while trying to book tickets for their almost sold-out show at Belfast’s Waterfront Hall, 98% of tickets gone as we speak.
Then there’s Brian Warfield’s excellent memoir, The Ramblings of an Irish Ballad Singer.
You could read that and contemplate how in 2002, a BBC World Service poll to find the world’s greatest song, despite polling 150,000 people in 153 countries, found it was the group’s version of ‘A Nation Once Again’. They hadn’t gone away, you know.
The Wolfe Tones’ latest success raises many questions: Will Joe Duffy explode? Could a collection of ex-Feile ’90 heads playing “any old shite” be put together quickly enough to cash in? Where will this end?
And, most fundamentally: Have we misjudged the Wolfe Tones?
Of late, acts like Lankum, the Mary Wallopers, Ye Vagabonds and others have been making Irish traditional music cooler than it’s been in decades.
Lankum played ‘Rocky Road to Dublin’ at a recent Vicar Street gig, and Damien Dempsey sang ‘Hand Me Down Me Bible’ at his shows in The Abbey Theatre. They were both superb.
Back in the day, I sat behind the driver on the Punk Bus, but I wasn’t deaf to the fact that Luke Kelly was more rock and roll than Johnny Rotten. Nor did I fail to register that many referred to Planxty as “the Beatles of trad”.
Could I have missed whatever it was the Wolfe Tones had, through teen prejudice perhaps or bull-headedness? Maybe theirs was a rawer, more undistilled version of all the above. Maybe that was why there was a backlash now against them.
So, in the spirit of “taking one for the team” or “due diligence” it was impossible to say at first, I waded into one of the Wolfe Tones' latest albums. It was called 55, and was released in 2019 to celebrate their, oh go on, do the maths yourself, it will pay dividends in your old age.
It had all the hits: The now very controversial ‘Celtic Symphony’, ‘God Save Ireland’, ‘Never Beat the Irish’, etc. There were two versions of ‘Foggy Dew’, the first, an instrumental, clocking in at nine minutes!
And what can I say? They are nothing like Lankum or Damien Dempsey. It’s more like Phil Coulter crossed with Foster and Allen, except not as edgy. It’s Ronan Keating’s version of ‘Fairy Tale of New York’ rather than The Pogues. It’s Rebels on 45.
And the lyrics – “who starts these bloody wars” won’t give Willie Nelson sleepless nights.
To quote, Luke Kelly, “For what died the sons of Róisín? Was it for this?” I think not.
Now perhaps the Wolfe Tones have just never captured the magic on record. Maybe you need to see them, be in the room, go up near the front, get into it, etc. And if the record exists that has that spark, point me towards it.
For now, however, I remain one of those who has NO IDEA WHAT IS HAPPENING. I am at a loss.
There is great power in Irish music. Passion, emotion, deep feeling, great writing, loss and want, and suffering and soul. But not in these versions, or at least not to these ears.
But fair play to them. If an audience are enjoying them, let them off.
The pall of outraged smoke being generated might see History go back on the syllabus. Until then it remains green, white and beige.
