The Gathering

Award winning Irish musician Mick McHugh fronts The Gathering, a Gold Coast band that plays traditional Irish tunes and songs with a good stack of popular covers folded in. They've recorded for ABC Music, toured internationally, and played major festivals including Port Fairy Folk Festival and the Australian Celtic Festival. Contemporary Irish Australian musicianship is the thing here, so the trad material sounds like now rather than a museum piece. And the measure they use is simple: whether the room is having a good time.