Tommy Sands at Proctors

Cost: $28-30

Bus: #905, #1—#355

Tommy Sands is one of the most important songwriters in Ireland if not the rest of the world. . . SingOut! (USA)

Iconic County Down singer, songwriter, radio broadcaster and social activist, Sands has achieved in his own lifetime something akin to legendary status in the U.S. and Ireland and beyond – very much deserved.

He was born just outside of Newry in the foothills of Ireland’s Mourne Mountain into the infamous Sands family, his upbringing immersed in folk music: his father on fiddle, his mother on accordion, and the children joining in. By the ‘60s and ‘70s, he was the chief songwriter with the Sands Family, a professional group including brothers Colum, Ben, the late Dino Sands and sister Anne. Performing with them from Carnegie Hall to Moscow’s Olympic Stadium, Tommy Sands evolved into one of the most powerful singer-songwriters and enchanting solo performers in Ireland today.

A warm and fascinating storyteller, singer and guitarist, he conjures Irish life sometimes bucolic and often darkly poignant. His soft-spoken voice belies his outsized musical and political influence over the years.