The Saw Doctors, one of Ireland's most enduring acts are back in the frame. Their To Win Just Once, The Best Of The Saw Doctors album has debuted at No.3 in the Irish album charts.
Tuam legends the Saw Doctors will be seeing out one of their most successful years yet with a gig in the Royal Theatre in Castlebar this New Year's Eve.
A mere 17 years after last doing it with ‘The Hay Wrap’, The Saw Dactors are back at number one on the Irish singles chart with their beefed-up version of Sugababes’ ‘About You Now’.
Fifteen years since they first topped the Irish charts, The Saw Doctors remain one of this country’s most successful bands. So why do so many people still consider them a novelty act?
At least The Saw Doctors never let you down. You always get what you’d expect: good old slap-yourself-on-the-knee pub songs! Toning things down ever so slightly, ‘If Only’ marks a slight return to the subtler, less raucous folk rock of 1996’s Same Old Town.
Though it retains the vibrancy of the past, it also marks a more mature Saw Doctors outlook of regret and nostalgia. Excellent b-side ‘Going Home’ builds on such wistfulness, adding to the group’s well of immigrant songs, and is worth the prize of the single alone.
Ireland has changed utterly since the Saw Doctors first enthralled us with their hick schtick, doing for rural Ireland what rap acts did for Compton, but now they’re back with their sixth studio album and sounding as vibrant and celebratory of all things real and Irish as ever.
Most of us have, at certain times, been guilty of doing The Saw Doctors a great disservice, airbrushing them out of the Irish musical family portrait. In the meantime they’ve continued to sell more records and play to bigger audiences around the world than most of their cooler countemporaries.
