I rave about a lot of bands because, well, I like a lot of bands in a lot of different styles of music. But the Mahones have always and will always stand out from the crowd.
They are one of my blizzard bands in there words a band that I would drive through a blizzard to see, and have. They put on one of the best shows of the year at the Slice, Nov. 24.
But first, I caught the last catchy, punky song from Toronto’s The Unbelievers. The female fronted trio sounded like an Asian Joan Jett and the Runaways back in the day.
But the Mahones came to party, especially with hot accordion player Katie McConnell, and charismatic husband, Finny McConnell plus the pyrotechnics of tin whistle player Michael O’Grady who did everything but stand on his head, including playing two whistles through his nose.
They set the Slice on fire with a crazy set of original Celtic punk music, with a couple awesome covers including the undertones’ “Teenage Kicks” and a sizzling version of the Ramones “I Wanna Be Sedated,” during which they brought the Unbelievers up back on stage as well as enthusiastic audience members.
They started with “Drunken Night in Dublin,” then crashed right into “Paint the Town Red,” which was featured in Oscar winning film “the Fighter.”
They blasted through most of their catalogue and new CD including “ Great Night On The Lash,”, “Ghost of the Whiskey Devil” and “The Wild Rover”, plus featured old crowd favourites like “Star of the County Down.”
Finny McConnell and company slowed things down for a spell with a couple upbeat “ballads” including “Girl With the Galway Eyes,” which he wrote for his wife. Then they picked up the tempo again with “Down the Booze.”, “All Across the U.S.A.” and crowd favourite “Draggin The Days,” which had most of the audience singing along.
They even played my absolute favourite song, “ One Last Shot,” which first got me into the Mahones a few years back from their “Here comes Lucky” album.
I forgot how good they are when they add the traditional instruments like accordion and tin whistle. Fantastic.
You could not beat their musicianship or their energy. The McConnells beamed ear-to-ear, and Katie bounced all over the stage with her accordion.
And while they didn’t play “ Give It All You Got (Or Forget About It), the single from the new CD “Black Irish” they covered most of their bases.
They added a new song “Ecstasy” which will be featured in the Trainspotting 2 movie and tore into “Shout At The Devil” “The Queen and Tequila“ and the punk fused “the Blood is On Your Hands,” from the new CD.
They called it a night with crowd favourite “Drunken Lazy Bastard,” but were called back for an encore well past 1 a.m.
