A Celbridge Story: How a diehard Eddie Vedder fan met his hero

“The whole saying is don’t meet your idols, but that was the opposite of what happened here!”

Brian Kelville wasn't expecting big things when he was driving through Celbridge, Co. Kildare, earlier on in the week. Granted, he was house-hunting with his girlfriend, but he had no idea that one of his music idols just so happened to be in the name place at the same time.

"I found myself in Celbridge looking for somewhere to live, basically, and I saw this guy with curly hair and a fella with a baseball cap on, with two ladies, and they just happened to pass by this ‘Whose Eddie?’ poster and your man with the baseball cap posed for it.

"I didn't think much of it but as I looked closer it literally dawned on me," Brian laughs. "I nearly crashed the car. I somehow got out and said to my girlfriend, 'I'm gone!' and just sprinted out and went over saying, ‘Eddie! Hey Eddie!' I ran over to Eddie and said, ‘Eddie I’m so sorry, I feel like I’m 10 years old saying this but I’m a big fan – have been for over 30 years.'”

Brian introduced himself to the rock legend and his wife Jill, before illuminating them about his career as a Freddie Mercury impersonator – with a few ‘DAAYYY-OH’s just to suitably impress Mr. Vedder.

"He was such a good laugh," Brian enthuses. "His wife Jill was full of enthusiasm too because her daughter is a massive Queen fan. She ended up asking if I could take a photo with Eddie! I didn’t even notice until that point that your man with the curly hair was Glen Hansard. They were all great craic though."

The story got even more interesting when Brian found himself part of Eddie's show at the 3Arena the following evening...

"I wasn’t able to make the show because my friend Ian was having an operation," Brian explains. "So I was looking out for him. Then I was checking at my laptop and all of a sudden I saw all these messages coming, in regards to this thing that was going on in the 3Arena. One of my friend’s was like, ‘Get in here now! Eddie’s talking about you!’

"Eddie had put up a picture on the arena's 20 foot screen of me in my Freddie Mercury get up in Tayto Park! He was telling the audience the story of meeting me.

"After that, I dropped everything and pissed it into town in the car. I just tried to see if I could get in or see what I could do. I got to the 3Arena at about 11.20 to see if security would let me in. One of the guys said, ‘Alright I’ll see what we can do.’ I was hanging around backstage and all the crowd was gathering and taking selfies with me because I was screaming 'I'm Freddie Mercury!

"Then Glen comes out from the gateway and goes, ‘You made it!’ He grabs me in and I go upstairs and I see Jill hanging about. She goes, ‘Brian! You made it!’ I said, ‘I just thought I’d come in and chance my arm.’ She’s like, ‘Ah that’s cool, that’s cool. Ed’s inside. Give him a big ‘DAAY-OH and see if he’s there.’ So I go in and he’s like, ‘Brian you made it what the fuck! That’s amazing.’ So I walk in and to the right is The Edge. It's The Edge and Glen and Eddie. Then Eddie tells me that he got me a gift and he pulls out this lighter with the Into The Wild silhouette logo on it. I couldn't believe it. It was such a surreal moment."