Hot on the trail of another storming gig at the Seagull Sessions in McHugh’s Barrel Venue last Sunday comes news that the excellent Led Zeppelin tribute band, the Rubber Plants, will play there next Sunday afternoon, 2nd October.
The band, Gerry Wilkinson on drums, Marc Forbes on keyboards and Gavin Corey on guitar and vocals play all the Zeppelin classics plus many of the band’s better known album tracks with a few lesser-known nuggets thrown in.
The Rubber Plants were runners-up to local heroes, Metallitia, in RTE’s first, and so far, only reality music TV show – Karl Spain Wants To Rock – way back in 2010.
The show’s producers were so impressed that they prevailed on the organisers of the prestigious UK tribute festival, Glastonbudget, to add the boys to the line-up alongside Metallitia who played there as reward for winning first prize in the series.
And so, the Rubber Plants found themselves wowing audiences there over the weekend in Leicestershire and then embarked on a full-scale British tour on the back of that initial success. They have played all the top venues in Ireland and have headlined the magnificent Ulster Hall in Belfast, on more than one occasion.
Two big fans of the Rubber Plants are ex-Thin Lizzy guitarist, Brain Robertson, and Something Happens main man, Tom Dunne, who also hosts his own music show on Newstalk Radio, and has had Gavin and the boys in as guests and both legends professed astonishment that someone can play guitar to Gavin’s level and still sing all the material, as well!
With the change in the weather and season, the Seagull Sessions have now moved inside to the Barrel Venue but are still free to enter with no cover charge, run from 5pm to 8pm on Sunday afternoons and more gigs will be announced in the next week with a programme intended to continue until the October holiday weekend…
