Gig and ticket information for the Christmas Tour.

Sat 6th Dec: WATERFORD, The Forum
Adm: €30 incl b/fee
Tel: 051-871133
Tickets available at www.forumwaterford.com
Doors 7pm
Special Guests: Shane Barry and the Distractions (brilliant upbeat soul band from Waterford)

Thu 11th & Fri 12th Dec: LIMERICK, Dolan’s Warehouse
Adm: €30 incl b/fee
Tickets and info available from:
Dolans pub, Tel: 061-314483
and www.dolanspub.com
and from Ticketmaster.ie, Tel: 0818 719300
Doors 9pm
Special Guests:
Thurs 11th: I Draw Slow (alt' country band with great songs)
Friday 12th: Saving J (great upbeat rock band from Kilkenny)

Sat 13th Dec: CORK, The Savoy
Adm: €30 incl b/fee
Tickets and info available from:
Ticketmaster.ie, Tel: 0818 719300
and from Tickets.ie, Tel +353 (0)86 393 5895
Doors 8.30pm
Special Guests: Nicole Maguire (great rock act from Cork)

Thu 18th Dec: NAAS, Time Venue
Adm: €27.50 incl b/fee
Tickets available from Ticketmaster.ie, Tel: 0818 719300
Doors 9.30pm
Special guests: The Minutes from Dublin (deadly alt' rock band.. great melodies and hooks)

Fri 19th / Sat 20th Dec: DUBLIN, Tripod, Harcourt St, ,
Adm: €35 incl b/fee
Tickets available from Ticketmaster.ie, Tel: 0818 719300.
Doors 7.30pm
Special Guests:
Fri 19th: Pugwash (the infectious pop rock tunes from Sea Captain Wally and his salty boys)
Sat 20th: The Aftermath (who just released one of the best Irish albums of the last few years)

Sun 21st Dec: PORTLAOISE, Heritage Hotel
Adm: €33.50 incl b/fee
Tel: 057-8622839 / 057-8678588 /
Tickets available from Ticketmaster.ie, Tel: 0818 719300.
Doors 8.30pm
Special Guests: The Pale (Yes..the real PALE!..one of the best irish bands from the 90's)

Fri 26th Dec: KILLARNEY, INEC
Adm: €33.20 incl b/fee
Tickets or Tickets & accommodation in the hotel:
INEC.ie
Tickets available from Ticketmaster.ie
Contact the INEC box office for further information on 064 71555 or email info@inec.ie
Doors 9pm

Sat 27th Dec: GALWAY, The Black Box
Adm: €30 incl b/fee
Tickets available from Ticketmaster.ie, Tel: 0818 719300
or Town Hall Theatre Box Office 091-569777
Doors 8.30pm
Special Guests: Without George (pop rockin' funketeers from Cong Co.Mayo)

Sun 28th Dec: CASTLEBAR, TF Royal
Adm: €30 incl b/fee
Call the box office at the Royal Theatre: Tel: 0818 300000
Tickets available from Ticketmaster.ie, Tel: 0818 719300
Doors 8pm
Special Guests: Mick Flannery (this guy from Cork has big songs, a big voice and a big future: get there early and listen!)

Wed 31st Dec (New Years Eve) ENNIS, The West County Hotel
Adm: €35 incl b/fee
Tel: 0818 300277. Customer Relations – 0818 300278 /
Tickets available from Ticketmaster.ie, Tel: 0818 719300
Doors 9.30pm
Special guest:- competition on Clare FM will decide this!

Nov 5th 11am Newstalk: interview with Tom Dunne and live song.

Nov 18, 11am FM104 : live session

Dec 1st, 2.30 - 4.30pm Today FM Performing live on the Tony Fenton Show.

Dec 4th,2pm, Phantom, Joe and Steve chat with Sinead Ni Mhordha and perform live.

Dec 11th:Today FM, Ray D'arcy show: Joe and Steve perform a Christmas Song.

Dec 26th RTE 2 Podge and Rodge Christmas Special. The band have 10 minute to learn a Christmas Song!

The Stunning Story - Steve Wall Tells It Like It Was September 01, 2006

Taken from the sleeve notes of the remastered "Paradise In The Picturehouse"

It was 1986. I was unemployed and sharing a flat off the South Circular Rd. in Dublin. The city was bursting with musicians and The Underground, a tiny music venue on Dame St. was a regular hangout.

Here, bands such as Something Happens, Real Wild West, A House, The Subterraneans, The Golden Horde, The Swinging Swine, Blue in Heaven and countless others played to a packed house of biker jackets, donkey jackets, pierced ears, quiffs and outsized suits.

I decided I had to start my own band. You didn't have to do an interview or fill in an application form. You just decided and you told everyone. I placed an ad in Hot Press and auditions were held in Aidan Walsh's Temple Bar rehearsal studios - but the band sort of fell into place weeks later in Galway where I had previously been a student for three years.

Cormac Dunne of Ballybofey, Co. Donegal had great taste in music, a degree in Archaeology and he punned non-stop (hence the nickname Corny). We had both been members of a band called New Testament and he was the best drummer I knew.

Derek Murray, another Donegal native, had a music shop in Galway where he sold secondhand instruments and records while putting himself through college. I bought my first electric guitar there. He used to sit behind the counter and solo along to Johnny Guitar Watson records while I pretended to be a customer avidly reading record sleeves. His playing was amazing and one day I asked him to join the new band. He said he'd give it a wee go.

My brother Joe had taken a year out of Art College to see Europe. I really wanted him in the band, as we had the same taste in music and unlike other musical siblings, we got on well. He was somewhere in Switzerland when I wrote to him asking would he come home and learn how to play the bass guitar. He was home within a month, fit, healthy and ready to rock.

I had this notion of the band being really big, with a huge sound, a sort of nouveau showband. An ad was placed in a local paper and the first three brass musicians that answered it were all hired on the spot. Jim Higgins on trumpet, Donal Duggan on sax and Paddy Schutte on trombone. We called them the Brass Monkeys, as they were just three precocious kids just about to do their final school exams. As if seven wasn't enough we then decided we needed keyboards to fully complement our sound! Ronan Kavanagh, a medical student with a huge sense of melody and a tiny synthesizer was offered the job. It was sometime in 1987 and The Stunning were born.

We all shared a big old farmhouse with friends where we rehearsed and partied and took turns to cook. Most times it was spaghetti bolognese. We even had a pony in the garden, Trigger and in the back yard we devised a new game SocFu, a cross between Kung Fu and soccer. Casualties were often high. The house was full of everyone's records. Derek had become a renowned DJ and ran a successful club called the Soul Solution. He had a vast collection of soul and blues and reggae records and we started learning songs by the likes of Archie Bell and the Drells, Koko Taylor and Lee Dorsey. Then there were mine and Joe's albums (some borrowed from our mother): Dionne Warwick, Martha and the Vandellas, Elvis Presley, John Lee Hooker, The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, The Clash, The Smiths, The Doors, Joy Division, Johnny Cash, The Goons. From Cormac's room you could hear the thumping of Iggy Pop, The Ramones, Eddie Cochrane and the feedback of the Jesus and Mary Chain. Jimmy was into The Police and Bob Wills and his Texas Playboys. But his real love was for old traditional recordings; the more crackle and hiss the better. He was now studying music in Cork University and playing the bodhran was to become his speciality. I could go on but you get the idea. We were all music mad and it was all we cared about.

Early Stunning gigs were like a potted history in the development of popular music. We never thought much about what direction the band should take. We just played whatever we thought was good, as long as it wasn't too well known. We skipped from blues to country, from soul to guitar tunes, from jazzy to funky. Songs like "Sockin' 1234" and "Tighten Up" were rare soul cuts that we adapted for ourselves. Ben E.King¹s "Supernatural Thing" was a certified floor-filler. Only the real music heads recognised Captain Beefheart¹s "Zig Zag Wanderer". Our first gig in the Hilltop Hotel in Galway attracted about 50 people, the second one a week later was sold out. I remember it was almost midnight and Paddy the trombonist hadn¹t shown up. We were due onstage in minutes so I decided to call his house. His mother got out of bed to answer the phone and reluctantly went to wake him. He was still at school and was under lock and key. I heard her running back down the hall to the phone screaming "He¹s not in bed and the window¹s open, where is he?!!" I hung up pronto. Minutes later he turned up backstage, completely out of breath. I waited until after the gig to tell him I¹d blown his cover.

Gradually we started to replace the cover versions with original songs. "Got to Get Away" our first single; "Half Past Two" our second; "Romeo¹s on Fire" our third; "Brewing up a Storm" our fourth. Every single was different to the one before. We just made the music and didn¹t think about what it should be filed under. We played all over the country, in tiny bars, in old dancehalls and on the back of trucks. At one town festival we were playing on the back of a truck when the driver was asked to move it as it was blocking a pub. Nobody told the band, with disastrous consequences. We thought nothing about sitting on our equipment in the back of a small van and driving from Galway to London to do a gig. We brought the music straight to the people wherever they were, live, steaming and sweaty. We sometimes played seven nights in a row and someone once referred to us as the hardest working band in Ireland. In the summer of 1990 we were doing a soundcheck at a venue in Waterford and a message arrived saying that, our debut album "Paradise in the Picturehouse" had reached number one. It stayed at number one for five weeks and was the first time a debut album by an Irish band had done so. This very album was paid for out of our own hard-earned cash and now all the hard work had paid off. There was no major record company hype, no friends in the music press, no gimmicks and very little money. All those awful journeys back from gigs at five in the morning now seemed worth it. We were the proudest band in Ireland that summer. It went multi-platinum and was to be heard everywhere that year. I meet people now that say they met their wives or husbands at Stunning gigs and that our music was a soundtrack to that time in their lives. A band can receive no better compliment than that.

We were together for seven years and released another number one album as well as a live album. Then we broke up. "Paradise in the Picturehouse" hasn't been available since around 1993 and I don¹t think we ever quite realised what it really meant to a lot of people. Since Joe and I started our current band "The Walls" our website has been inundated with e-mails from Irish people all over the world looking for it. So we decided to re-release it on our own label Earshot and get the band back together for one final swansong. We hope you enjoy it whether it's your first time round or whether you're just re-visiting.

This story ends here.
Steve Wall, Dublin, August 2003

Are you a singer? in a band? do you reckon you could entertain the audience on New Years Eve? Well..

..Click here to check out the competition details on the Clare FM website

Sat 6 Dec: WATERFORD, THE FORUM
Thurs 11 Dec: LIMERICK, DOLANS
Fri 12 Dec: LIMERICK, DOLANS
Sat 13 Dec: CORK, THE SAVOY
Thurs18 Dec: NAAS, TIME VENUE
Fri 19 Dec: DUBLIN, TRIPOD
Sat 20 Dec: DUBLIN, TRIPOD
Sun21 Dec: PORTLAOISE, HERITAGE HOTEL
Fri 26 Dec: KILLARNEY, INEC
Sat 27 Dec: GALWAY, BLACK BOX
Sun 28 Dec: CASTLEBAR, TF ROYAL
Wed 31 Dec: ENNIS, WEST COUNTY HOTEL

The good news is : The Stunning will be touring Ireland this Christmas. Dates and details to be announced shortly.

THE STUNNING take on E4! The Stunning don't exist as a band right now but they are still "Brewing Up A Storm" and have ended up in a row with British TV station E4!

It started as a drunken party joke and ended up as a TV ad.

The Stunning were celebrating the end of the "Paradise In the Picturehouse" re-union tour at a party where New York comedian Aidan Bishop was in attendance.

Someone slapped on "Brewing Up A Storm" and Aidan wowed the dance floor with his freaky dancing. Someone, somewhere, somehow came up with the notion that they should make a TV ad for The Stunning featuring Aidan dancing.

A couple of weeks later, much to everyone's surprise, the shoot went ahead.

This was no big budget affair and why should it be reckoned The Stunning, it was all a bit of craic.

"The TV is full of slick marketing", explained Joe Wall from The Stunning, "We went for something a little bit more homegrown."

Homegrown in this is instance involves shooting an ad for TV broadcast using just a domestic video camera. D.I.Y. is the phrase that comes to mind.

The Ad was shot on a Saturday afternoon, edited on a laptop on the Sunday and sent off to E4 in London on the Monday.

When E4 saw the ad they flipped and were on the phone straight away refusing to show it. "You have to", pointed out The Stunning, "We've paid for the airtime!"

"But it's not broadcast standard", said E4. "Neither is rubbish like The Salon", replied The Stunning.

E4 would only agree to show the ad if The Stunning signed an agreement absolving them from any blame for the ad.

See what all the fuss is about yourself from next Monday on E4, between seven and midnight each evening!

On Saturday November 1st, at the invitation of Galway Bay FM's Jon Richards, Steve and Joe will be playing a benefit show for Aids West in Galway¹s Town Hall Theatre. Doors at 11pm. Tickets EUR18 from the Town Hall Theatre Box Office and Redlight Records. Support comes from Catherine Farrell.

Steve and Joe wil be playing the spirit store in Dundalk on Saturday November 22nd.

Tickets priced EUR16 are aavailable from The Spirit Store, Georges Quay, Dundalk, phone 042 9352697 for credit card bookings or enquiries, or The Record Sleeve, Longwalk Shopping Centre, Dundalk.

Paradise goes GOLD - again!!! - The Stunning's reissue of PARADISE IN THE PICTUREHOUSE has gone GOLD just 4 weeks after its release! This is the second time the album has gone gold. The first time was in 1990, but the album is selling even faster now than it did back then. Steve Wall's reaction to the news was 'The first time it went gold I bought a 2nd hand car and a stereo system - now I'll probably put an extension on the kitchen'.

The tour is over but the Stunning's "Paradise In The Picturehouse" album re-issue keeps going from strength to strength. Today the album officially achieved gold status in just four weeks. "Paradise In The Picturehouse" selling faster than ever.

The Stunning have most definitely withdrawn from live activity and at the time of writing are scattered to the four corners. Joe Wall was last spotted buying a sofa in Glasgow, Steve has been approving Walls tracks for a forthcoming Bachelor¹s Walk DVD, Jimmy and Derek have been jamming in the back of a tour bus and Cormac has been flying the Galway flag.

However, there are plans afoot for a Christmas single which will be finalised soon. We will of course be letting you know details as they become available but December would be a good bet for a release date!

The Stunning¹s final concert in Vicar St last Monday was a charity concert in aid of a community based healthcare programme in Ekenywa Village, Arusha Region, Tanzania co-ordinated by Dublin based charity Aidlink. The target to raise 15,000 euros to fund the project for three years was acheived. Joe and Steve Wall will be handing the cheque over on behalf of The Stunning at a special Aidlink event in Dublin¹s Sugar Club on Wednesday November 5th.

Joe and Steve will be returning to Galway, the scene of four sold out Stunning shows, to play a charity show for Aids West in the Town Hall Theatre on Saturday November 1st. More information to follow.

I'd just like to say to everyone that came to the shows - thank you. We were glad that we decided to do it in the end. 'Paradise...' is too good an album to just re-release and hope that it would get noticed. It definitely would never have gone Top 5 if the band hadn't reformed. If we were ever going to do it, then the 'Paradise..' reissue was the perfect reason. We wrote those songs after all and there's no earthly reason why we shouldn't have the right to give them an airing. We are musicians and musicians are meant to play.

I'd also like to thank the musicians that joined us onstage - original Stunning member Donal Duggan (who flew back from Norway), box player Mairtin O'Connor, who did the whole tour, Brendan O'Regan (mandolin in Galway), Zoe Conway (fiddle in Galway and Dublin), Mundy, Ollie Cole, Pearse Doherty and Nick Seymour (formerly of Crowded House). We partied every night!!!!

It was great to see a large proportion of people who had never seen The Stunning or The Walls before and Joe and I were particularly chuffed at how well To the Bright and Shining Sun went down each night. We sold lots of Walls albums on the tour as well so hopefully we'll have plenty of new faces at future Walls gigs.

Right now I'm completely whacked, exhausted, run down, but feeling good in the head. The tour gave us a real confidence boost and an impetus for The Walls new album. The Stunning tour taught me that great songs never die. We've written lots of new stuff, but now I feel we need to write more before we go into the studio. So this month will be spent doing just that and then we've got to get recording fast.

Again, thanks to everyone that made each and every gig really special. I never thought we'd end up doing so many and I never realised just how much goodwill still exists out there for a band that split up almost 10 years ago.

Love and best wishes to you all and remember, The Walls are coming!!!

Steve

The tour is going mental. Gigs sold out all over the place. Only about 50 tickets left for the last Galway gig, so move fast mailing list and website users - we've told the rest of the world yet that it's already sold out. Check Ticketmaster and Redlight Records in Galway.

The Stunning will be playing live in Redlight Records on Galway¹s Shop Street at 7pm on Wednesday. Tickets are all gone but you will be able to catch the vibes from outside.

The lads will be playing live on Pat Kenny¹s radio show on RTE Radio One on Thursday morning at about 11am to publicise their protest busk on Shop Street, which happens at 6.30pm on Thursday. Come and bring loads and loads of mates!

There will be a free gig in Tower Records, Wicklow Street, Dublin by The Stunning at 6pm on Monday the 29th. Pretty low-key vibe but should be great craic. A thank you to all for being so supportive!

The last last last gig of the tour will be Monday night in Vicar St. It¹s now a benefit gig for an Aidlink project in Tanzania. Please read on, bring all your mates and make loads of noise for the last night of this amazing tour!

THE STUNNING
Paradise In The Picturehouse Tour ends with benefit for Aidlink Tanzania.

Thirteen years after its original release The Stunning's re-mastered reissued classic album "Paradise In The Picturehouse" is set to spend its second week in the Top Five of the Irish Album charts. The Paradise In The Picturehouse tour has been a resounding success, selling out all over the country. The Stunning¹s third date in The Radisson in Galway is now sold out - what a home-coming!

The final final final date of The Paradise In The Picturehouse tour has now been announced - Monday September 29th in Dublin's Vicar St.

The band has decided that the proceeds from this last show will be donated to charity. As Joe Wall from the Stunning puts it. "The Paradise In The Picturehouse Tour has gone so well that we felt it was appropriate that we give something back. The gigs have been amazing. The fans have been legendary. Every night we've played to crowds made up 50/50 of die-hard Stunning fans and those seeing the band for the first time!"

The Stunning has decided that the proceeds from the final final final night will go to fund a community based healthcare programme in Ekenywa Village, Arusha Region, Tanzania. The proceeds of Monday's concert should be enough to fund the project for three years. The project is being funded by Dublin-based charity Aidlink, who fund projects throughout Africa and South America. According to Steve Wall, "What attracted The Stunning to Aidlink is that rather than send their own teams out to run projects like most big charities do, they fund locals to do it for themselves."

The Ekenywa project aims to improve the health, educational and nutritional status of the 10,000 people living in its catchment area. Ninety per cent of the village does not have access to safe clean water and 45% can't read or write.

The money raised by The Stunning fans will fund the training of community health educators and traditional birth attendants, as well as literacy, book-keeping classes and AIDS specific health education.

This project is one of many that Aidlink source funding for each year. Their philosophy is based on empowering communities to look after themselves and therefore to effect long-term, sustainable standards of living within communities.

This show creates a precedent for The Stunning - it will be an end of tour party with no guest list! Friends, family, fans and supporters will all be putting their hands in their pockets to help improve the lives of people living in extreme poverty.