Dónal Dineen’s Backstory Dances have gone from strength to strength recently with a storied residency at the Commercial Rowing Club in Dublin continuing to hold down an exalted position within the capital’s underground dance scene.
As well as that, a series of acclaimed stages curated by him at Irish festivals including The Cambium at All Together Now made 2023 another year to remember for both him and Backstory.

He returns to the Wild Mind in Fenit for a Backstory special with an acclaimed run on the RTE Lyric FM show Vespertine under his belt and wind in his sails!

Dónal’s extended Backstory sets are like alternative guides to the musical universe with no stone left unturned in his mission to unearth gems from every musical hotspot the world over.

The impetus to start the night back in 2015 stemmed from his desire to find a home for the kind of dance music fire that he was unearthing in his search for tunes in dusty basements of record stores worldwide to write about for his Sunken Treasure column in the Irish Times.

It began as a project to gather together all the sounds he was collecting on vinyl from every part of the world and became a place for the like-minded to revel in the joy of music and the uniquely special experience of discovering it together on a dance-floor. The unerring attention to detail on the quality of the music has seen its reputation soar to become something of a touchstone for discerning dancers both in Dublin town and further afield.
The Backstory motto “All the colours, every dancing mood” has served it well and the atmosphere generated on one heady night after another has become the stuff of legend from its genesis in its spiritual home of the much-missed Jigsaw in the north inner city to its current incarnation by the Liffey Banks.

 

Having together put the icing on the Wild Mind cake on the Sunday evening last year, Dónal will be inviting Paudi Cronin back again to help him set the twilight reeling on Friday, April 26th.