The Wolfe Tones have said they want Kylie Minogue to join in chanting “ooh ah up the ‘Ra” at their upcoming Electric Picnic gig.
The Irish folk band is set to perform at the festival’s Main Stage on Sunday following their record breaking crowd at the Electric Arena last year.
Lead singer Brian Warfield told the Irish Mirror he would like to hear the festival’s headliner Kylie Minogue singing the band’s controversial song, Celtic Symphony.
“I believe it’s gonna be a huge crowd and we’re on the main stage before Kylie, maybe we’ll get Kylie to sing “ooh ah” with us!” he said.
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Organiser of Electric Picnic Melvin Benn told reporters on Tuesday he was astounded by the crowd commanded by the band at last year’s festival.
“I was pretty surprised,” he said. He has been a long term fan of the band and usually watched them in pubs in London.
“I literally have been a fan since very early days. The idea that they could play to that amount of people was off the scale.”
Last year, he was taken aback by the large following among the younger cohort. Mr Benn said: “They knew the words better than I ever could.”
It comes as the band defended “up the ‘Ra” chanting during the Olympic homecoming in Dublin.
A live BBC NI broadcast from the Team Ireland homecoming in Dublin on Monday had to be cut short after children in the background were heard chanting: “ooh ah up the ‘Ra”.
During a BBC Newsline report on the Olympians returning from the Paris 2024 Games, reporter Aoife Moore had to stop as she said she couldn’t hear anything, and the broadcast was diverted back to the studio in Belfast.
TUV politician David Clarke wrote a letter to the Olympic Federation of Ireland to express “shock” over the incident.
He said he was “shocked and appalled” when he saw the clip and sent a letter highlighting the issue to President of the Olympic Federation of Ireland, Sarah Keane and the Director of BBC Northern Ireland, Adam Smyth.
“I was shocked and appalled when the children suddenly took up a chant of “ooh ah up the ’Ra” which prompted a swift end to the live broadcast.”
But responding, Warfield said he doesn’t understand the upset.
“We’ve been saying it for years, and singing it for years, let the people sing. If they want to sing a song, let them sing it,” he said.
“I don’t think anybody should object. It’s stupid to object to a song. If the kids like singing it, you know, could be anybody, could be Taylor Swift or anybody.”
He added: “That’s been going on for years, not only now.”
He said there were plenty of young people singing the song during west Belfast’s Féile an Phobail.
“We were up in the Féile there for two nights up in Belfast, we had probably 38,000 people there over the two nights and by God, what a reaction.”
“You can sing “up the Ra” but that’s what it is, it’s a Celtic football song at the end of the day. They pick out one line as usual, you know the story, it is more or less to demonise the song or the Wolfe Tones.”
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News Catch Up: Monday 12 August 2024