Blackbeers

The Blackbeers are:

Peter Moynahan - vocals, guitar

Doina Stan - fiddle

Mircea Ungureanu - lead guitars, vocals

Alia Talos - vocals

Adi Comorasu - bass guitar

Razvan Staicut - drums

Our story

The Blackbeers were founded by Peter Moynahan (vocals, guitar, banjo, mandolin, kazoo) and Zoltan Biro (accordion, bagpipes, whistles) in Oradea-Romania as a traditional Irish music band in August 1999. In October fiddle player Tunde Levay joined us too.

With a repertoire of more than 60 Irish songs, ballads and tunes we started playing at festivals and in pubs across Romania and Europe.

In April 2001, with the support of the first Irish Pub in Timisoara, we recorded a professional demo.

At the end of July the Blackbeers were touring in Transylvania with new member Radu 'Burger' Szucs who he played the bodhrán and the acoustic bass. After the tour we changed our fiddler as well, and the new member's name was Otto Segal.

On December 14th 2001 and April 7th 2002 we recorded a live album at Bolta Irish Pub-Cluj that was out on Halloween with the title 'Drink the Night Away'.

During this year we built up a strong partnership with Guinness and Tobacco Trading International. Together we set up a series of concerts promoting the album. Unfortunately after the first gig, Peter's banjo was stolen but the event was followed by several successful performances and we washed away the sadness with a significant number of pints...

2003 was the year of our international debut, when we first got to play in Hungary, Belgium, U.K. and Ireland. At the end of the year a major change took place in our line-up when one of the founders of the band Zoltan Biro was replaced by Johnny Doe who played the whistles, the Irish flute and the bodhran.

In the spring of 2004, we recorded Cuig, our first studio album that was presented at several summer festivals and a pub-tour in October-December. At the end of the tour Johnny left the band and his place was taken by drummer/percussionist Misu Stana.

In 2005 we launched the new Celtic-Rock line-up and presented our lead-guitarist Norbert Scheck. We also recorded two songs “The Leaving of Liverpool” and “The Real Old Mountain Dew” that you can download from our web-site.

In 2006 we celebrated 7 years of Blackbeers with the '7 Crosses Tour', playing 7 gigs in 7 different pubs where we had a good time before.

2007 brought new changes in our line-up as Otto's place was taken by flute player Stike Molnar. On December the 8th we celebrated 8 years of Blackbeers in Bucharest at the Romanian Peasants Museum. Unfortunately this was our last gig with guitarist Noris and drummer Misu. A long transition period has been deployed...

On St. Patrick’s Day 2010 we were back on stage with a new line-up: Peter Moynahan (guitar, vocals), Stike Molnar (vocals, flute), Cristi Horea (fiddle), Sebi Nazarevscky (lead guitar), Vlad Cerbu’ (bass), Alia Talos (vocals) and Razvan Staicut (drums). But this line-up did not last long as soon new fiddler Doina Stan and bass guitarist Adi Comorasu joined us. Besides the classic Celtic tunes now we also played Irish-punk!

In 2011 after a series of concerts Stike and Doina have left the band deploying another transition period, but this time a short one as soon fiddler Tom Crowley has joined us.

After the 2012 St. Patrick’s tour Tom moved back to Ireland so we were again looking for a fiddler and that was the point when Doina Stan returned to the band.

Now the Blackbeers are working on new songs and also an EP should be out in early 2013…