Saw Doctors hit The States

This weekend offers your last two chances to catch The Saw Doctors on Irish shores for quite some time. The venerated Galway rockers will be belting out the classics in Dublin's Olympia Theatre tonight and Saturday night (Jan 27-28) before hopping across the Atlantic in February. You might even catch a few last minute tickets here if you're lucky.

After that, they have their sights set on the US, and what manager Ollie Jennings calls "the biggest tour of the States that we've ever undertaken."

Hot Press caught up with The Saw Doctors' manager ahead of that American slog, which will last for six weeks and include 29 shows. The extended sojourn, according to Jennings, is due to a change of agency.

"This year is our 21st consecutive year to tour in America," Jennings say "Traditionally, we've only done three weeks at a stretch. We were with a small agency in New Jersey but by mutual arrangement, we've changed. There was no bad blood, they'd been very good to us. We just felt that they weren't getting us the kind of festivals we wanted or extending our reach. So we moved to a bigger West Coast agency called APA and got introduced to an English guy called Keith Naisbit. He took a big shine to The Saw Doctors and said to us, 'I can make things happen here, I can sell you at the places you haven't been.' So we thought we'd see how he goes. He asked us to move the three weeks to four weeks. We said 'ok'. He came back to us and said, 'I've so many shows… can you move it to six weeks?'"

It's a big commitment for a group of seasoned musicians all with personal lives to lead but, by the same token, a nice problem to have.

"It's a bit of a drag for us because we're not teenagers," Jennings admits. "We've families and it's a long time to be away. Some people have young children. But we're all set now to start in Florida."

The group kick things off in the Sunshine State on February 22 and by the time they wrap up in LA on April 1, they will have played many towns for the first time. "We haven't played Florida before and we're doing four shows. A lot of people seem to have resettled down there because of the good weather. We're doing our first show in Canada for ten years and we're playing places like Iowa that we've never been to."

It would appear that, two decades on, the Doctors' popularity across the water is as strong as ever, and possibly growing. Jennings remembers their initial forays abroad.

"The first time we went to New York we played to a thousand people. Then the first time we played Boston there were people crying at the gig when the band played 'N17'. It struck a chord, people were saying, 'oh god, I have to get home' or 'I can't get home.' So it was a great introduction and gradually over the years we built on for that. Cleveland is always great for us. We can do The House Of Blues in front of 1400 people. Then all over Massachusetts, not just Boston. We play a town called North Hampton – we sell out their 1300 capacity theatre and we've been doing that for years."

The mainstays might be old hands at this by now, but it will be a month and a half of firsts for the newest addition to the line-up – fresh-faced drummer Rickie O'Neill, who has come in to replace Eímhín Craddock.

"After five years, Eímhín Craddock has decided to take some time out," explains Jennings. "He's a teacher of drums as well, so one of his pupils has taken over. He's a young guy of 21 – he wasn't even born when 'I Useta Love Her' was released in July 1990, imagine that! We did an English tour in November/December and mid-tour Rickie came over. After doing a few sound checks and encores, by the end of the tour he was doing the full gig under the guidance of Eímhín. What's lovely about him is that he's a big fan. There are obscure songs he loves, which he'd only know if he was a fan. This will be his first big tour. He's jumping in at the deep end.. But he's a champion swimmer – he held records for the butterfly at U14, U16. So he'' be fine in the deep end!"

Sandwiched in between this weekend in Dublin and the North American tour, the boys will find time to record. They head to England for a week to commence work on the follow-up to 2010's The Further Adventures Of... and will continue intermittently throughout the year. April brings more exotic shows, when they take to stages in Dubai and Abu Dhabi.

For full tour information, go to [link]sawdoctors.com/index.php/gigs[/link].