Gobs O'Phun

Doors 7PM/Show 8PM

It’s not really St. Patrick’s without the Gobs!

This March finds Gobs O’Phun embarking on their 32nd year of making audiences feel like part of the family with their annual St. Patrick’s concert at Swallow Hill.  

Gobs O’Phun is comprised of brothers-in-law Denis Sullivan and Martin Lambuth. Their name hints at the idea they are primarily vocalists, as “gob” is slang in the Celtic Isles for your mouth. Their repertoire offers a selection of traditional Irish (and Scottish) folksongs presented with seasoned harmonies backed by guitar, bodhran, harmonica and their signature humorous banter.

The Gobs sing songs that tell stories, themes that can resonate with any cultural background, so you don’t need Celtic ancestry to appreciate their music. Their stories cover just about every eventuality – life and death, love and marriage, trials and triumph, oppression and freedom, self-acceptance and amusing observations. And those stories are covered from different perspectives, from poignant to hysterical and everything in between. They also open their gobs to share toasts, poems and oral histories of significant events related to the songs. And when they frame their music with spontaneous, ad-libbed humor, you never know what fun will come out of their gobs!

They started performing in “County Denver” in 1994 – before the run of the “Celtic Tiger” (before Riverdance, the Three Irish Tenors and Celtic Women became household names) – and before Irish pubs started popping up on every corner like Starbucks, many of which have since disappeared. After a show at Finnegan’s Pub in downtown Denver (their first “pub-home”), they were greeted by a patron saying, “welcome to our country”. Not a bad acknowledgment for a couple of lads from Pueblo, Colorado.

The Gobs have been regulars at several pubs over the years (and may have been singing at some of them). They were soon invited to play at festivals from mountains to plains, including one of the biggest in the region, the Longs Peak Scottish Irish Highland Festival in Estes Park for several years. As their reputation for music and merriment grew, the Gobs had occasion to criss-cross the region as well, playing all over Colorado, Utah, Wyoming, Montana and Nebraska, including venues in Chicago and St. Louis. But they feel most honored being asked to play for private parties celebrating intimate family events such as birthdays (age 8-100), weddings, anniversaries, retirements, and sadly, wakes and memorial services. Gobs “phans” includes preschoolers, toddlers, youngsters, tweeners, teens, college kids, twenty-somethings, thirty-somethings, middle-aged adults, seniors and golden-agers. As you can see, they have a wide demographic appeal.

When you’re talking gobs of fun, it’s all about having fun on both sides of the microphone. Their casual style invites audiences to laugh, groan, sing along, clap, stomp their feet and end the evening with a feeling of good cheer. Get your tickets today for all the special people in your life and let the gob times roll!

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Host or Publisher Swallow Hill Music