Not every Irish musician enjoys playing pubs. Some refuse to play pubs and others do it only because there are not many alternatives that pay anything. Only a few performers seem to be comfortable playing pubs.
Then there is Tony Cummins. He seems born to play pubs. A Tony Cummins performance is a high energy, rollicking, explosion of outrageous silliness. Tony does more drinking songs than any performer around and is always insisting someone "drink it down."
Hecklers? Tony heckles members of the audience. He not only gets members of the audience sing along, but get into contests and stand on their chairs. In one performance, he convinced several guys to drop their trousers (after the women refused).
No CD could possibly capture the insanity of a Tony Cummins performance, but Cummins and Goins is a good attempt. Several of the cuts were performed at the Dubliner and for the song, "Drunken Sailor" he credits "Phoenix Arizona - Background Vocals." All of his live tracks were recorded at the Dubliner. The energy just infectious for songs like the "The D.T.s", "The Irish Rover", "Lannigans Ball", "Patricia the Stripper", "Drunken Sailor" and his own composition "Eucalyptus Tree" (its about getting drunk and running into one). Along with fine renditions of old favorites "Dirty Old Town" and "The Old Triangle"; this what you expect from a Tony Cummins performance and he does not disappoint.
It is doubtful that Tony will become famous for doing slow ballads, but he does them with feeling. "Thousands Sailing", "The Green Fields of France" and "Isle of Hope" are not simply a change of pace. "The Green Fields of France" is a very powerful song and he does it credit.
Cummins and Goins will definitely please Tony's fans and probably produce a good number more.