Cian Ducrot - Secret Gig: It's brilliant, where is it on, how to catch it

Irish Daily Mirror

09-05-2025

Cian Ducrot fans are in for a huge TV treat this weekend.
The Cork-born Grammy winning Ducrot, one of the biggest-selling Irish singer-songwriters of all time was filmed 'live' at a secret Irish location earlier this year.
The gig features his smash hits singles 'I'll be Waiting' and 'All For You' from his first album Victory.
The show also highlights songs from his forthcoming album Little Dreaming, set to be released in early July.
It has been a hectic 18 months shooting from near obscurity to stardom for Ducrot, his hit singles triggering appearances at big name festivals worldwide.
Moving from busking to headline shows, he has wowed 70,000 people at Electric Picnic, played all across the UK including Wembley, Europe, USA and Canada.
But don't be fooled, he grins, if you think a record deal and one album makes it is as simple as just walking out in front of a waiting, adoring and loving crowd - you'll be waiting.
Because this Grammy Award winner admits has had his fair share of highs and lows on tour this last while but the important thing is to keep smiling - if you can't laugh it would kill you!
"You learn so much in terms of adapting to venues, performance space, audience reactions, kind of facing up to nerves, playing for people who maybe don't really care.
"There is a lot of difficult situations when you tour and when you play shows and festivals that not a lot of people think about.
"A lot of people see, okay, there's an artist, they've had a successful album or successful songs and have all the touring and it all looks amazing.
"But everyone knows social media isn't real life and everyone knows that, yet we forget.
"Everybody probably thinks we're all out there having the best time ever but I talk to my artist friends and I'd say how was your festival run, and how was that show, it looked amazing?
"And they are, like, it was the worst thing ever, nobody cared or everyone was so loud, everyone went to watch a different artist or whatever and it's not like the easiest thing to face up to."
What doesn't kill you makes you stronger!
"I was in Scotland last year and put up on stage at the same time as the biggest Scottish artist of the year who is playing on another stage.
"You might as well go play in your kitchen to your mum - there's nobody there and you just have to perform like there are, whatever, 10,000 people there and these things are very difficult and they happen constantly throughout your career.
"It doesn't matter you might be huge in Europe or big in America or big in Australia and then you'll go to some random place and people may just have never heard of you and you have to face up to it."
Still, it helped to have busked, it is a good grounding.
"Busking is definitely something that kind of helps you get through awkward situations and I'd recommend all young artists use it as a learning tool.
"For a long time, I thought everybody busked, it was one of those things that I thought that every artist I met did when I moved here to London but I soon realised that it wasn't actually that common.
"A lot of them obviously have and a lot of the artists that I look up to, especially in Ireland, it's really part of the culture or as a singer-songwriter.
"I remember when I had success with All For You and it was the first kind of successful song that I had, and it was still very early on in the song's life, it had kinda just come out and was starting to be successful.
Ireland was slow to come around too, there was on time at a non-camping festival.
"I was playing at 12 noon in the afternoon and there was eight people in a venue tent that was meant to be filled with, like, 20,000 people.
"I remember running out on the stage pretending like there were thousands of people. I just made a joke about it, because there was nothing I could do.
"I started the whole set with 'I'll be Waiting and there was nobody there, nobody even knew the song, it wasn't even out at that point.
"And then I finished it off with All For You and there were probably 10 people in the tent including my manager and three people from the record label and that was it.
"My manager and I, we got on the flight home, and we were laughing and I got to the airport and the girl at the check-in desk was like, 'Oh, aren't you playing at Forbidden Fruit Festival?' and I'm 'Yeah, I played this morning at 12am'.
"But I was thinking it's 12pm and I'm heading home and it was like, nobody even knew that it was on, no one was even there, it was raining."
You have to just face it, laugh it off, put it down as paying your dues.
"Then a couple of months later, I played on the main stage of Electric Picnic in front of 70,000 people and so you kind of just have to be, hopefully it's not gonna be like this forever and things do change.
"But those things, some of it doesn't matter, I could play 70,000 people at Electric Picnic or 20,000 in St Anne's Park and I could still go somewhere else and there might not be anyone show up or and these are things that I think busking gives you courage and helps you realise.
"Like you'll be singing your heart out on the street and one person comes up to you and they say 'that's the most amazing thing I've ever heard 'Your voice is so beautiful, please sing at my wedding...' and others might walk past you and tell you to shut up!
"So it's just opinions are so different and busking does really help you realise that, help with you shaking it off."
Cian Ducrot features in Virgin Media Television's brand-new three-part music series, The Secret Headliner, which kicks off at 8pm Sunday on Virgin Media Play and Virgin Media One.