Anthony Toner to play Braid Real Music Slub

The Real Music Club at the Braid will be welcoming singer songwriter Anthony Toner to Ballymena this month.

As part of his Northern Ireland tour. Anthony will be performing ‘in the round’, giving the audience the chance to get up close and personal with this fantastic musician.

The Belfast songwriter kicked off his tour and celebrated the release of his seventh album with a special concert at the Lyric Theatre in Belfast last month.

He then embarked on a tour of the Province, which included dates at the Flowerfield Arts Centre in Portstewart.

This new collection, Ink, finds him in top form on a series of stripped back, acoustic-based songs dealing with the big themes of love, loss and happiness – the lyrics also cover subjects as diverse as politicians, 70s television, loaded guns and Alzheimer’s Disease.

The album started life as basic guitar tracks recorded by Anthony at his home, with subsequent overdubs from John McCullough at The Piano Shack. The drums, vocals and bass were added at No Sweat Studios in Coleraine, where long-time collaborator Clive Culbertson produced, mixed and mastered the album.

It’s been almost a decade since Anthony sprang onto the Northern Ireland music scene with his much-loved song Sailortown, and since then he has continued to move forward, playing live constantly and releasing a string of albums packed with radio-friendly, insightful songs such as East of Louise, Well Well Well, The Road to Fivemiletown, The Duke of Oklahoma and many more.

Anthony supports this release with a string of live performances at arts centres and theatres across Northern Ireland, mostly solo shows, but also appearing alongside artists including Ciaran Lavery, Eilidh Patterson, John McCullough, Matt McGinn and Brendan Murphy.

As always, the performances will feature Anthony’s much-admired fingerstyle guitar work and the between-song banter that has become such a strong part of his live shows.

Anthony will be joined at The Braid by Bob Spiers and Kevin Doherty.

The show kicks off at 8pm on Saturday May 27 and tickets, priced £10, are on sale now from the Braid Box Office on 028 2563 5077 or online at www.thebraid.com.