A husband and wife team who pen Christian hymns are set to join Snow Patrol as the only artists from Northern Ireland to sell out two consecutive nights at Belfast’s biggest indoor venue.
Keith and Kristyn Getty, Grammy-nominated hymn writers behind global anthems like In Christ Alone, are on the cusp of making history at the SSE Arena with their two back-to-back Home for Christmas concerts on Thursday and Friday night.
With Friday’s concert now completely sold out, only limited tickets remain for tonight’s show and these events mark the largest Christian concerts that have ever been held at the venue.
Lisburn-born Keith and Kristyn, from Newtownabbey, relocated to Nashville where they have established themselves as one of the biggest artists in their genre – last Monday they played to a sold-out Carnegie Hall in New York on what was also Keith’s 50th birthday.
He told the Belfast Telegraph: “It’s a special place to play. Backstage there is a big photograph of Leonard Bernstein and every time we go and say, ‘There he is, hi Leonard!’ And the Beatles famously played there too, of course. So we take it very seriously to be there and you have to do good work when you arrive! But in 10 years there it has been wonderful.
“But it will be extra special for us to be home for Christmas to finish our tour with these two concerts, it’s very much a homecoming and a celebration of the season and our music.
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“We’ve always come home and we love that but we wanted to start a family and we thought Nashville would be a good place to base ourselves, we just loved the atmosphere there with different musicians and types of music that feeds into that creative work.
“Nashville is Belfast west, it really is, if anywhere in the world is – and the Christmas show came out of moving to Nashville. We got more interested in the Irish heritage, and the Scots-Irish heritage, because everyone was fascinated because they all feel a sense of tie to Scotland and Ireland and the music and the history that happened there.”
The Gettys’ added a second date after their Home For Christmas show tomorrow quickly sold out, with tonight’s show on the brink of following suit, and will have a roster of special guests joining them on the SSE Arena stage.
That includes the renowned New Irish Orchestra and Choir, alongside acclaimed singer-songwriter Blessing Offor, Christian band We Are Messengers, renowned theologian John Lennox and beloved poet Malcolm Guite.
The audience can expect to enjoy brand-new songs alongside cherished traditional carols, performed in a grand symphonic style with the Northern Irish duo at the peak of their powers and celebrating a decade of performing together.
For more information and ticket availability, visit Ticketmaster.ie
News Catch Up – Wednesday 18 December