Brian Finnegan & The Hunger of the Skin Big Band – followed by Trad Disco
Brian Finnegan & The Hunger Of The Skin Big Band, followed by Trad Disco with Ollie Mullooly.
Queens Nightclub, midnight Friday 7th November 2025
Brian Finnegan is a celebrated composer, collaborator and producer and has toured and recorded with artistes as diverse as KAN, Cara Dillon, Boris Grebenshikov, Anoushka Shankar, Bebel Gilberto, Ed Sheeran and El Buho.
Frontman with the dazzling group Flook for almost 30 years and collecting awards and a huge fan base wherever they toured, Flook charged back to the top table in 2019 after a 4 year hiatus with the release of their 4th studio album ‘Ancora’.
In March/April 2020, Brian created his most expansive and ambitious work to date. Featuring a genre crossing cast of 24 musicians, and recorded remotely in home studios around the world; ‘Flow, In The Year Of Wu Wei’ was the first single from the album ‘Hunger Of The Skin’, it was released in June 2020 and was nominated for the RTE Radio 1Folk Awards 2020, ‘Best Original Track’. Brian will be joined by Seán Óg Graham on guitar and Danny Byrt on drums, fellow members of his 6 piece, Hunger Of The Skin Band.
REVIEWS FOR HUNGER OF THE SKIN
FolkWorld, Album Of The Year 2021
Irish Traditional Music like we’ve never heard it before, just astonishing.A musician of global importance. ~ BBC Radio Foyle
A quite stunning album. ~ The Irish News
It sweeps in like the wind off the desert… a marvellous example of what music can do. Definitely a candidate for Album Of The Year ***** ~ Rock and Reel Magazine
Nine confinement-denying instrumentals, charged with a driving thirst and fierce hunger for connection and communication, lifted by a crack cabal of musicians playing with improvisatory energy and an impeccable sense of ensemble…scintillating! **** Top Of The World Album ~ Songlines Magazine
It’s not just that this album is exquisitely arranged and full of outstanding musicianship. Throughout there is an urgency to it, sometimes at the forefront, sometimes below the surface, but always present. Five of the tracks interpolate recitations of poems, and it’s the voices and words that truly animate the album and reinforce it’s imploration for us to remember our humanity, in death as well as life. A thing of beauty. ~Boston Irish
Hunger Of The Skin is a soulful, spirit-raising journey – which particularly shines in its moments of astonishing intensity and explosive energy. ~Hot Press Magazine
A triumphant illustration of the power of music not merely to entertain but to raise spirits and lighten the soul…. a musical jewel. ~ Folkradio.uk
A magical celebration. from the opener ‘Dust’, almost an accelerated version of Pink Floyd’s Money arranged as a whistle duet, to the open-hearted words and simple notes of ‘Dare’ which make my scalp tingle, this is a remarkable album and a rare work of art. ~ Folking.com
Hunger of the Skin is an astonishing piece of work from beginning to end, humane and complicated, replete with the wisdom you get after 50 years on planet Earth. ~ Seán Laffey, Irish Music Magazine
How the hunger roars in this music… these tracks latch themselves onto your skin, hot and alive…a living, thick foliage of sound, with Finnegan’s quicksilver flute soaring and diving and ascending above it all, lighting it up. ~Celtbritfolkmusic.net
‘Dreamy, gut-wrenching, bewitching. Magnificent!’ ~Alex Monaghan
‘An Odyssey’ ~BBC Radio Ulster
‘An extraordinary piece of music, from an extraordinary musician.’ ~ RTE Lyric FM