Ahead of their eagerly anticipated appearance with the RTÉ Concert Orchestra as part of RTÉ's Culture Night celebrations, Gabriel P. Blake of Donegal sensations The Murder Capital explains what makes this particular homecoming gig one to remember.
Growing up in Donegal can make the world feel far away.
This in turn, makes a town and its surrounding landscape exist as the only world for one's formative years. I'm so lucky to have come from Letterkenny. It has given me time to think. What passes through or comes from here, feels like it’s yours. Even if it leaves again or if you go away yourself.
I knew I wanted to be a musician from when I was about thirteen. Being brought up by the backdrop of Donegal bands made me feel as connected to music as I was to the loose gravel beneath my feet from the LK tarmac. It was home. Looking up to my cousins, Al & Charlie Joe Doherty, who performed under 'clanns’, made me believe I could have the ability to write music that could stun.
Watch The Murder Capital perform Return My Head on The Tommy Tiernan Show
While I was still in St. Eunan’s Secondary School, I was accepted to come and perform at Other Voices in Derry, 2014 with my two best friends, Conal Doherty & Gary Hamilton. It was jarring to see our name alongside the likes of Annie Mac, The Amazing Snakeheads & The Gloaming as a Transition Year student. Through that show I met SOAK and ended up supporting them on the Irish leg of their ‘B a Nobody’ Tour later that year. Bridie made me believe that a true career in music was possible for someone who came from an isolated part of Ireland but more importantly, they also showed me how it could actually be achieved.
That twenty-minute border crossing into Derry made me realize that I might have to go away to eventually come back. So, I moved to Dublin. After three years of studying at BIMM and not really knowing what part of this new world I fit into, I walked into the Button Factory, on a rainy night in November and saw James, Irv and Pump on stage. For the first time since I had left home, I felt like I was watching something that was a part of who I am. It felt like mine as well.
Culture Night 2023 has allowed me the opportunity to return home to Donegal and perform with The Murder Capital for the first time in my life.
Since that night, we have travelled the world and managed to achieve so many of the goals I had when I was a wee boy. Staring out the window of my bedroom in Letterkenny, strumming songs to no one but the people walking down my road. They couldn’t even hear me anyway. I’ve now felt the gravel of many a petrol station, from Serbia to Chicago, and been at home there too. Listened to The Sailor’s Bonnet in Poland and text Charlie to say that "We’ve done it."
The thought of driving Donegal backroads, temple leaning against the back passenger seat window of his Honda Civic. Condensation beside my forehead, Grouper in my ear. Any road can feel like a Donegal road as long as you spend enough time on both.
Watch: The Murder Capital perform More Is Less on The Tommy Tiernan Show
We have played at Glastonbury, Coachella & performed to 15,000 people in Paris at Rock en Siene last month. We’ve done a session at KEXP in Seattle, the main goal I ever had as a musician. We recorded albums with world renowned producers John Congleton & Flood. We went to No. 1 in the Irish Album Charts. But we have never played in Donegal.
Culture Night 2023 has allowed me the opportunity to return home to Donegal and perform with The Murder Capital for the first time in my life. It is a humbling honour as well to rework Return My Head with the RTÉ Concert Orchestra. A song that, to me, is about returning your mind and soul to a place of reasonable peace and safety. As well as that, the belief to do so is possible. This is even more special to me as the music video for the track we are playing was shot in the Recreation Hall of St. Eunan’s College, my old secondary school, in Letterkenny. Culture Night 2023 coming live from Donegal has also afforded us the opportunity to put on our own show in the Regional Cultural Centre in Letterkenny with Jeremy Howard, the night before, which has been a dream of mine since we started the band. To return to a place that is the reason I was able to understand art and myself.
I am eternally grateful to Aoife Woodlock for the constant steadfast belief and words of encouragement to us and so many artists that are lucky enough to have met her and to all the team at Culture Night 2023 for bringing The Murder Capital to Donegal.
Uaireanta, caithfidh tú imeacht chun teacht ar ais. Coinnigh least í!
The centerpiece of RTÉ's celebration of Culture Night 2023 on Friday 22nd September will be a live music and arts TV programme broadcast on RTÉ One at 7pm.
RTÉ will take the RTÉ Concert Orchestra and guests to Dún Lúiche (Dunlewey) at the foot of Mount Errigal and the edge of Loch Dhún Lúiche in the heart of the Donegal Gaeltacht.
Presented by musician and host of Radio One's Folk On One, Muireann Nic Amhlaoibh, the programme will feature the RTÉ Concert Orchestra, with guest artists including Jessie Buckley, The Murder Capital, Aby Coulibaly, Ye Vagabonds and Olesya Zdorovetska - find out more here.
