Galway International Arts Festival and Róisín Dubh have announced that The Saw Doctors will take to the stage at the Heineken Big Top on 21 July.
The announcement comes after the band confirmed they will return to play in their hometown of Tuam for the first time in three decades, on 19 August.
The Saw Doctors last performed at the Galway International Arts Festival in 2004 in a double-bill with The Undertones at the Warwick Hotel.
The band were discovered by Mike Scott of The Waterboys on a stormy Tuesday night in Galway in the 1980s, plying their trade with more gumption than virtuosity in the back room of The Quays Bar.
Scott offered them the support slot on The Waterboy’s Irish Tour to launch the ‘Fisherman’s Blues’ album in 1988 and they went on to support The Waterboys on their six-week tour of Great Britain in Spring 1989.
Their first single, N17, was written by the band’s singer Davy Carton and guitarist Leo Moran.
I Useta Lover, their second release, entered the Irish single charts at number 27, from where it slowly climbed, taking seven weeks to reach number one and remaining on top for the following nine weeks.
It went on to become the biggest selling Irish single, outselling Sinéad O’Connor and U2.
The Saw Doctors made their first trip to The United States in 1991, a journey they have made almost a hundred times since.
Tickets for The Saw Doctors go on sale at 10am this Wednesday 5 April from giaf.ie and roisindubh.net
