Gaelic Storm, the Titanic steerage band, books Nashua Center for the Arts

The Celtic rock band that played the movie's third-class party comes to downtown Nashua on Thursday, Feb. 25, with tickets on sale through eTix.

Picture the scene almost everyone knows: the below-decks party in *Titanic*, fiddles and pipes going, Jack and Rose spinning across the floor while the first-class passengers sip upstairs. The band playing that party was real, and it's still touring. Gaelic Storm plays Nashua Center for the Arts on Thursday, Feb. 25, 2027, with the show at 7:30 p.m.

The date was announced Oct. 27, and tickets are on sale now through eTix. Nashua Center for the Arts holds about 1,000, a good size for a band whose shows run on audience energy.

That movie moment is where a lot of people first heard them. In 1997 the group appeared in James Cameron's film as the steerage band, playing "An Irish Party in Third Class." The band's self-titled 1998 debut) leaned into it, and its Wikipedia entry still describes them as the actual band seen playing for the steerage passengers on the ship.

What kept them going after the movie was the live show. A Cornell Daily Sun review of a 2016 stop in Ithaca called the band "irresistibly upbeat," which is about as fair a summary as you'll get: reels and drinking songs, pipes and fiddle over a rock rhythm section, and a crowd that tends to be on its feet before long.

The band from the Titanic party scene is still the reason people dance in the aisles.

The records kept coming, too. *Matching Sweaters*, the band's twelfth album, came out July 24, 2015 on Lost Again Records, produced by Steve Twigger and recorded between Austin, Texas and Annapolis, Maryland. According to the Cornell Sun, it reached No. 60 on the Billboard 200 the following month, a strong number for a Celtic band working without a major label.

The genre tags on this show say rock and folk, and that's the right order of operations. Gaelic Storm isn't a quiet-listening session band. They play Irish and Scottish tunes with the volume and the tempo of a bar band, which is why they have built such a loyal following on the road.

Why Nashua, and why this room? A 1,000-seat downtown hall is large enough for a crowd to feel like a party and small enough that the band can talk to it, which Gaelic Storm does a lot. It also saves Southern New Hampshire fans a drive to Boston. The band's run brings it through the region over a few days: they also play Portland, Maine's State Theatre on Tuesday, March 2.

As for timing, late February in New Hampshire is about as far from a summer festival as you can get. A Thursday night of pipes and fiddles is a decent way to get through it, and with no reason to expect the show to get cheaper, tickets are worth grabbing now rather than closer to the date.

Bring your dancing shoes, or at least the ones you don't mind stepping on. The third-class party is coming to Main Street.

Sources: Gaelic Storm – Migu artist page (music.migu.cn); Gaelic Storm (album) – Wikipedia (en.wikipedia.org); Matching Sweaters – Wikipedia (en.wikipedia.org); Irresistibly upbeat: Gaelic Storm at the State Theatre – Cornell Daily Sun (cornellsun.com); Gaelic Storm – Wikipedia (en.wikipedia.org); Gaelic Storm at Nashua Center for the Arts – JamBase (jambase.com)