FRED
Venue: Crawdaddy, Harcourt Street
Date: 7th June
Time: 20.00
Tickets: €14

Excellent news, people! Not only are fantastic Cork five-piece FRED finally releasing their long (long, long loooong!) awaited new album Go God Go on 30th May - they're also playing a very special gig in Crawdaddy on 7th June to celebrate.

And if you managed to read that without getting a jittery, excited "I've just had five espressos and a whole bag of sugar" feeling in your tummy, it's safe to assume you've never heard them play. You poor, poor thing!!

FRED have been brightening up the lives of Irish gig-goers for years now, adding fan after fan to their huge cult following (which is fast becoming a rather giant mainstream following) with their brilliantly catchy, quirky, funny and clever tunes. Celeb fan, and fellow Corkonian, Des Bishop even featured their songs in his hit RTE show Joy in The Hood! 

FRED describe themselves as a band who "take the anguish, angst and pain out of rock'n'roll", which is a pretty accurate description. They also describe themselves as "the first band ever to post their music on iTunes" and "the people who invented democracy"  (which is probably less accurate), and  promise their new album will be "sexier than the last one and solve global warming" (we'll wait and see).

But don't be fooled by their happy-go-lucky charms, completely infectious sense of fun or even their laugh-out-loud hilarious website, these guys really are serious musicians. It's just that the music they're serious about happens to be a whole lot of fun! They're influenced by the likes of Sly Stone, Curtis Mayfield and The Beach Boys, but somewhere along the way the band developed their own unique and thoroughly entertaining sound and style.

You can check out some music samples on their Myspace page or Website, but really there's nothing quite like the fun and energy of their live performances.

A word of warning though: if you're the sort of person who actually enjoys feeling cross and miserable, you'd do well to stay as far away from all things FRED as possible. These guys are to bad moods what cyanide is to, well, everyone!

Everyone else, book your tickets online now or at usual outlets nationwide, and enjoy. This could well be the funnest gig of the year.
Unless they play another one.
Which would be nice.