Pete Kennedy

Birr Theatre & Arts Centre provided the venue on Saturday night last for the launch of Pete Kennedy’s new CD – ‘This Time’… The album comprises a total of eight tracks, four of which are covers and four originals which were co-penned by Pete and his Cousin, Mark McCormack…. The end result is a very pleasing mix of Pete’s interpretation of other people’s work and his honest and heartfelt delivery of his own compositions.

Pete performed solo for the first half of the show accompanying himself on acoustic guitar and opened with a nod to none other than Christy Moore with a version of the classic ‘Ride On’ – I suspect that Pete threw this in just to ease into the evening and keep the audience guessing for a little while…! Two of his own tracks – ‘Feelings’ and ‘The time of your life’ were very well received by the house also during the first half of the show… Pete then demonstrated the ease with which he can cross gender (Vocally..!) with a version of Miley Cyrus’ ‘The Climb’ and how well he can tug the heartstrings with his delivery of the Garth Brooks classic, ‘If tomorrow never comes’ which went down a storm with the country music purists in the audience…

The second half of the evening saw Pete return to the stage but this time with a full backing band and thus armed, launched straight into Garth Brooks’ ‘Standing outside the fire’ which got a tremendous reception. The band, which was assembled exclusively for the event, added an additional dynamic to the second half of the evening and was comprised of Pete’s family and extended family in the main - His brother Damien on Drumming duty, Mark McCormack (Cousin) on Guitar and Mike Kennedy (Uncle) on Bass, leaving Keyboard player Beyton Bolton as the only non-family member on stage…! Pete’s version of the Collin Raye classic ‘Love Me’ which was delivered in a very laid back style with primary accompaniment from Beyton on piano was one of the many highlights of the evening.

Pete and the lads entertained wonderfully with such timeless numbers as The Eagles’ ‘Peaceful Easy Feeling’ and Hal Ketcham’s ‘Past the point of Rescue’ on the evening’s tracklist. Pete also delivering the title track from the CD, ‘This Time’ and ‘When you come back down’ both of which were heartily received by the attendance who were at this stage well into the entertainment. The show finally closed with their performance of Rascal Flatts’ ‘Broken Road’ - a very popular track which apparently caused a few female eyes to mist over here and there in the audience…. As you might expect, an encore proved necessary and Pete and Co. came back on to perform the missing original track from the album, ’Yellow’ and this number generated a tremendous response and a great close to the show...

Pete Kennedy loves to perform and when you take his musical ability and factor in an impressive appearance with imposing good looks, one has to feel that he has certainly got the potential to go places….. ‘This Time’ is the name of Pete Kennedy’s new album and who knows…? ‘This Time’ may well be it……

- Offaly Express