Gaelic Storm returns to Portland for the first time since 2009

Nearly 18 years after a Port City Music Hall show, the Celtic rock band from the Titanic party scene plays the State Theatre on Tuesday, March 2.

The last time Gaelic Storm played Portland was April 7, 2009, at Port City Music Hall. Nearly 18 years on, the band comes back to a much bigger room: Gaelic Storm plays the State Theatre on Tuesday, March 2, 2027, with the show at 7 p.m.

The date was announced Oct. 27, and tickets are on sale through Ticketmaster. The State Theatre holds about 1,870, so this is a step up in scale from the 2009 show.

For anyone who needs the introduction: you've probably seen this band without knowing it. In 1997 they appeared in *Titanic* as the steerage band, playing "An Irish Party in Third Class" during the below-decks dance. Their self-titled 1998 debut) followed, and its Wikipedia entry describes them as the actual band seen playing for the steerage passengers.

A movie cameo can be a career by itself, and Gaelic Storm turned it into a long one. The band kept recording on its own terms. *Matching Sweaters*, its twelfth album, came out in July 2015 on Lost Again Records, recorded in Austin and Annapolis with Steve Twigger producing. The Cornell Daily Sun reported that it reached No. 60 on the Billboard 200 the following month.

Eighteen years is a long time between visits, and the band is coming back to a bigger stage.

What hasn't changed is the show. The same Cornell Sun piece, a review of a 2016 stop at Ithaca's State Theatre, called the band "irresistibly upbeat," and that's the right expectation to bring: pipes and fiddle over a rock rhythm section, reels and drinking songs, a lot of crowd banter and very little sitting still. The genre tags here say folk and rock, and the live show leans hard on the second word.

Why the return matters: Portland has a real appetite for Celtic music, and a band that most people met through a movie scene has spent the years since building a following one road show at a time. A 2009 club date in the Old Port was one kind of night. A State Theatre show, with the balcony full and the floor moving, is another. If you were at Port City Music Hall back then, this is the chance to see how the band has grown into a bigger room.

It's also a short swing through northern New England. A few nights earlier, on Thursday, Feb. 25, the band plays Nashua Center for the Arts in New Hampshire, so this is a regional run rather than a one-off.

A Tuesday in early March is a tough sell on paper. Mud season hasn't quite started, winter hasn't quite let go, and the calendar is thin. A night of fiddles in a historic theater on Congress Street is about as good an antidote as you'll find. Tickets are on sale now.

Eighteen years is long enough. Don't wait another one.

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 at State Theatre – JamBase (jambase.com)