Can you keep a secret? Well, this gig headline act is

In the modern age of the music industry, where everything is documented and shared on social media, it is now standard for a band to make announcements about making another announcement later.

The idea of doing anything and keeping it a secret seems counterproductive, but a forthcoming TV series in production for Virgin Media called The Secret Headliner is testing this theory.

On Thursday, December 7, in The Crane Lane, there will be a recording of a band playing a show to an audience who don’t know who to expect.

The show’s producers, Indiepics, assure us that the band previously sold out shows at the 3Arena and were quoted as saying they want it to be “like Bowie in the Baggot Inn” (when David Bowie played surprise shows in 1991 in a small venue, in Dublin).

The series has some public funding from the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland‘s Sound & Vision 4 Broadcasting Funding Scheme and, along with the secret headliners, they want to pay tribute to the venues on the live music circuit where bands cut their teeth.

As the producers of the show put it: “Many music venues and musicians have been so badly impacted by the pandemic.

“Ireland’s music community has always looked after its own.

“The Secret Headliner is a tribute to the grassroots music scene and in support of upcoming, emerging talent.”

Some of that support is literal in the sense that a young band are being given the opening/support slot and will also get to appear on television in 2024.

The band that The Secret Headliner’s personally selected for the gig in Cork are Simple Things.

While they are from Kerry, they are no strangers to Cork — as one of their members lived and studied here for several years whilst in college.

Shane, the band’s bass player, is well aware of how much of a break this is for Simple Things.

“It feels absolutely amazing to be picked to play with The Secret Headliner,” he said.

“We really feel like this is the next step in our musical career.

“We honestly feel like we are gifted with this opportunity and so grateful for it.

“We grew up watching big Irish artists on TV and always saw that as something we’d love to do.

“It opens us up to such a large audience and is such a big opportunity for us,” he added.

Simple Things have been making great strides over the years, and they have already headlined a show themselves in the INEC in Killarney.

Dylan — the singer and guitarist in the band — explained how they first started. “The band started with Kealan and I, we’re childhood friends and have always been playing traditional Irish music,” he said.

“We started to move towards the pop side of things just before covid happened.

“During lockdown, we all had more time to sit at home and try things we developed a sound.

“We’ve certainly kept our traditional background as a key element of our music.

“Things have progressed and Shane joined our band on bass, to fill out the sound a lot more, and we’ve got a bit more recognition recently.”

Kealan, who plays accordion and keyboards, says they are always working towards developing their sound and are always listening to new ideas.

“We try to take influence from a variety of genres and then integrate them into our own sound as we go,” he said.

“Some of the big names that might give people an idea of what we sound like are Mumford and Sons and The Lumineers, but Irish music is very important to us like Picture This and The Coronas, and another would be a group from Kerry, Walking On Cars.”

Dylan also wanted to mention people they’ve been playing with on the circuit.

“We really love what Kingfishr are doing at the moment,” he said.

“We really look up to them in terms of where we want to go and the level we want to be at. We also recently had the pleasure of meeting a band called Amble, whose music we love. They’re a great bunch of lads, and great craic too!”

Simple Things has built their reputation as a stirring dynamic live experience.

Kealan said: “I always jump between the two instruments on stage. We feel it’s almost like two different genres of music when we switch from the keys to the accordion. The accordion always brings a lot of energy.”

Despite their relative youth, Simple Things have been very quick to use whatever platform they can to raise awareness of issues that are important to them.

With that in mind, they got fully behind the Movember campaign by writing a new song every day.

They then posted it on Instagram and TikTok, with Kealan adding: “It was great raising awareness for men’s mental health. We also play gigs at a lot of secondary schools, and being able to talk to students that age and raise awareness through our music is very important and special for us.”

Writing 30 songs was something Dylan found quite a challenge.

“It’s most certainly been tough to find the time each day to write a song, but we have really enjoyed the process,” he said.

“It’s made us push ourselves. While some of the songs may not be our best work, we are definitely going to look back over them and pick out some we feel have potential.”

“We record all our music with our producer Dave Skelton in Galway,” Kealan added.

“We recorded our first song with Dave when we were living in Galway, and we’ve returned to him for every song since. Now he is like a friend, a producer, and an advisor all at the same time!“

• Simple Things will play The Crane Lane, on December 7, as part of The Secret Headliner .
  Register your interest by emailing, your name and phone number to tshaudience@indiepics.ie.