Rory Gallagher festival launch at Musicmaker

Over 30 different performers including festival headliners 'Band of Friends' featuring Rory Gallagher's bandmates Gerry McAvoy and Ted McKenna, will converge on the south-Donegal town for this year's festival which kicks off on Thursday May 30.

Speaking at this afternoon's festival launch at the Musicmaker store on Exchequer St, Dublin, festival chairperson and proud Donegal man, Barry O'Neill expressed his excitement in the run up to the 4-day event.

"It's an amazing success story in itself," said Barry "especially considering that in the first year, around 200 people showed up and over the last 3 or 4 years attendance has built up to between 8,000 and 10,000."

"Over 20 different countries were represented by Rory [Gallagher] fans last year and it's not surprising really considering the amount of hard work that he would have done when touring."

The theme of this year's festival is 'Failte Isteach Rock' to tie in with The Gathering 2013, something the festival organizers feel can provide a much-needed boost to festivals nationwide.

Barry said: "The Gathering is very important and is probably going to save a lot of festivals this year and keep them going in what are tough economic recessionary times. But the great thing about the Rory Gallagher festival is the vast majority of it is free to view."

The Rory Gallagher Tribute festival has picked up the Irish festival of the year award for the past three years and this year's festival will feature guitar workshops as well as non-stop street-busking, to compliment the open-air free-to-view concerts.

Ballyshannon's Johnny Gallagher, one of the acts featured on this year's line-up, was also in attendance at today's festival launch.

Gallagher, who will take to the stage with the Boxtie Band said: "I love being involved in the festival. It's getting better all the time, we've seen it in the very beginning and how far it has come since then, is just fantastic".

Cork-based blues-rock trio Crow Black Chicken will make their Rory Gallagher Festival debut this year and speaking at the launch, drummer Gev Barrett said: "It's brilliant to be a part of it. We've heard so much about the festival and now we're just really looking forward to getting up there and seeing all the other bands over the weekend".

The Rory Gallagher International Tribute Festival takes place from May 30 to June 2. Weekend passes for the festival's Big-Top are priced at €45 and are available from [link]www.goingtomyhometown.com[/link]

Check out our gallery of pics from today's launch, click here.