Performance

When Thursday, 12 April 2012
Where National Concert Hall, Main Auditorium
Presented by Waltons New School of Music
Supported by RTÉ lyric fm, Sunday Independent, Dublin Conrad Hotel

This concert was recorded for broadcast by RTÉ lyric fm.

Tinariwen

Ibrahim Ag Alhabib • Vocals, Guitar, Flute, Acoustic Guitar
Abdallah Ag Alhassane • Vocals, Acoustic Guitar
Eyadou Ag Leche • Vocals, Bass Guitar, Acoustic Guitar
Elaga Ag Hamid • Vocals, Guitar
Abdallah Ag Lamida • Vocals, Guitar
Said Ag Ayad • Vocals, Percussion

‘The desert is my home. I’ve never been attracted by the idea of emigrating to Paris or Los Angeles. It’s in the desert that I feel that I belong. You have to live simply in the desert. It’s the only way. Simplicity is freedom.’
– Ibrahim Ag Alhabib

‘The cosmic, roiling Afro-Arabic groove this North African guitar band generates is like a sandstorm.’
– Rolling Stone

‘The guitars, along with simple but perfect clapping and percussion,, rough male voices and ululating female ones, and the fierce, hypnotic quality of the traditional melodies combine into one of the most devastatingly mean and lowdown sounds to have come out of Africa.’
– Songlines

Tinariwen

Tinariwen are guitar-poets from the southern Sahara desert and icons of freedom and resistance among their own people, the nomadic Tuareg of the Sahara. Their back-story has been described as ‘dramatic’ (The Independent), ‘the most compelling of any band’ (Songlines) and ‘the most rock ’n’ roll of them all’ (The Irish Times). A long road has taken Tinariwen from the wild empty places of the Sahara to the concert stages of the world. The group’s founding members spent the 1980s in Libyan military camps, dreaming of dignity and self-determination for their people and singing songs for an entire generation of young Tuareg. Their rolling, yearning grooves and uncompromising messages of simplicity and freedom, distilled over many years of struggle, rebellion and exile, have brought them countless accolades and the attention of such high-profile fans as Robert Plant, Carlos Santana, Brian Eno, Damon Albarn, Chris Martin and Thom Yorke, as well as the enduring respect of their own people.

Selected YouTube Videos