SPRING CLEANING - WHELANS UPSTAIRS

Spring Cleaning - Whelans Upstairs

words: Corey Grange

Spring Cleaning are a Dublin band, made up of Sean Boland (vocals, guitar), Jamie Hickey (bass), Gary Conroy (lead guitar) and Sean Reilly (drums). These boys can pen a tune. Think of an Irish Teenage Fanclub with some Pixies thrown in there. There's more to it than that, but they are as tremendous as that sounds. Upstairs in Whelan's was jammed for these lads, and we can only hope that they get a chance to play bigger venues soon. Shorts in the Rain opened for them, a 4 piece band with some banger tunes. Go stream 'shatter', it's pretty as hell.

Spring Cleaning played 12 originals and 2 covers, and the crowd loved every second of it. 'Wake Up! (Smell the Roses)' and 'Merry-Go-Round' (go stream it) remind me of A House and Sack in different ways. Jangly guitar riffs and catchy choruses. You guys know the vibe, you're cool sure. 'All My Loving' by The Beatles and 'Say It Ain't So' by Weezer (Blue Album is great, shut it) were the covers chosen, and go down a storm, they did. Boland tried to pass off the former as an original, but he wasn't pulling the wool over my eyes. I'm cleverer than that. 'Adeline' and 'San Antonio' seemed to be crowd favourites, which means they have constant gig-goers. Only one song released on Spotify and they've got it sussed.

The boys are sound, the tunes are whopper and the gigs are great craic. Don't miss the train, hop on board early and enjoy the ride.