THE WATERBOYS PERFORMING AN APPOINTMENT WITH MR. YEATS
Abbey Theatre, Dublin
March 15th, 16th, 18th, 19th & 20th, 2010
Doors 8.00pm
**ON SALE NOW**
Tickets €49.50 including booking fee
From the Abbey Theatre Box Office 01 8787222 / www.abbeytheatre.ie
Raglane Entertainment is very proud to announce the world premiere of The Waterboys performing An Appointment with Mr. Yeats at the Abbey Theatre, Dublin, from March 15th to 20th (excluding March 17th), 2010. An Appointment with Mr. Yeats sees the words of one of Ireland’s greatest literary sons merged with the music of one of Britain and Ireland’s greatest rock bands, in a truly unique and ambitious musical undertaking.
The project has long been a passion for Waterboys vocalist Mike Scott, who first delivered a new dimension to Yeats’ poetry in 1988, when he wrote a musical accompaniment for the classic poem The Stolen Child, during the making of the Waterboys seminal album ‘Fisherman’s Blues’. Five years later he set another Yeats poem to music, Love and Death, which appeared on their ‘Dream Harder’ album. Over the years, Scott has been quietly crafting a wealth of material similarly based on the writings of Yeats. A number of these were performed by him at the Abbey Theatre during the Yeats International Festival in 1991, but most have remained in Scott’s private songbook awaiting the right vehicle. An Appointment with Mr. Yeats is that long-awaited conduit. Of this magical project that has been more than twenty years in the making, Scott says: “Since 1991, when I sang a few Yeats interpretations onstage at the Abbey as part of a festival, I’ve had the vision of a whole show using Yeats’ words as song lyrics. Over the years I’ve returned again and again to my book of The Complete Poems and have slowly built up a repertoire. And I should stress these are songs - rock’n’roll, pop, psychedelic and roots songs - not recitations. Apart from The Stolen Child there is no spoken word in the show. My purpose isn’t to treat Yeats as a museum piece, or to be slavishly respectful, but to connect with the soul of the poems - as they appear to me - then go wherever the music in my head suggests; and that means some surprising places.”
Scott’s love of literature is firmly embedded throughout the work of The Waterboys –The Whole of the Moon is, in part, a tribute to C. S. Lewis and Scott has also put the writings of Robert Burns, James Stephens and George MacDonald to song. Speaking on his literary influences and loves, Scott explains: “I grew up in a house full of books so literature - and language - have always been important to me. Working with other peoples’ words is something that comes as natural to me as working with my own. In a way it’s even more immediate; I’ve always found writing music an easier process than the writing of lyrics, so setting words of the quality of Yeats’ to music is an enormous privilege and treat.”
It is both significant and fitting that the world premiere of An Appointment with Mr. Yeats will be hosted by the Abbey Theatre, as Yeats was its founding father, alongside Lady Gregory, the Fay brothers and Edward Martyn. Of the spiritual connection between the theatre and the show, Scott says: “An Appointment with Mr. Yeats HAD to be at The Abbey. There was no other choice. While creating this show I’ve been deeply absorbed in the work not only of Yeats but of Synge, AE, Harry Clarke and other figures of the Celtic revival and the birth of Ireland’s national theatrical movement. This show has grown as much out of that fertile ground as it has from The Waterboys’ own rock’n’roll history, and I want to deliver it to the people of Dublin and Ireland in the crucible of their own national theatre.”
An Appointment with Mr. Yeats will feature an extended Waterboys line-up including Irish fiddle virtuoso Steve Wickham, Limerick-based rock/soul drum master Carlos Hercules, and a host of invited guests including the great flute player Mike McGoldrick, Catalan trombonist Blaise Margall and highly-acclaimed emerging Irish rock vocalist Katie Kim., whose voice Mike Scott fell in love with when he heard Katie sing at Dublin’s Button Factory last December.
The show will feature twenty of Yeats’ poems, spanning both famous and lesser known works, from the wry to the romantic, the political to the mythological, all invigorated with the energy and exuberance of The Waterboys. The concert will also feature some Waterboys classics reworked specifically for this setting.
An Appointment with Mr. Yeats will be a unique and memorable opportunity for lovers of great music and great literature to celebrate the union of song and word in one spectacular live performance.
For further information on An Appointment with Mr. Yeats,
please contact Aileen Galvin at Entertainment Architects on 01 2608659 / aileen@ealtd.ie
