Irish girl band B*Witched play Brighton to mark ten years since reunion

There will be plenty of plans to mark that quarter century in 2023 but for the moment they are delighted to be out on the road as special guests for Blue’s Heart & Soul arena tour this December with dates including Monday, December 12 at the Brighton Centre.

Consisting of twin sisters Edele and Keavy Lynch, Lindsay Armaou and Sinead O'Carroll, the group enjoyed success throughout Europe, Asia, Australasia and North America.

Their first single C’est La Vie shot to the top of the charts. Their follow-up singles Rollercoaster, Blame It On The Weatherman and To You I Belong also reached number one, selling over five million albums along the way and was top ten in the USA.

Now they are back on the road.

“And I do think things are pretty much back to normal now after the pandemic,” says Lindsay. “Things are pretty much there now but it has taken a while. The whole industry shut down for a good 18 months and we were the last industry to get the go-ahead to open up again and even then it was very limited in terms of numbers of people coming along and so on. So it was hard really. It was very difficult at the time because it was so hard to know what was going to happen. Nobody said that you're not going to be able to open again for 18 months. Mentally I was OK because I had my hands full with my children who were so small at the time, my son was eight months and my daughter was two and a half. My days were full of caring for them and keeping them entertained in the house. We were only allowed out at certain times and then the after that there were still so many boundaries and limitations on us. So it was tricky creating things for the children to do. It was also frustrating because in our industry we were last to get the go-ahead and really there was not much support from the government or the system for people like us. I know a lot of people had to disappear from the industry altogether which is very sad.

“But for us as a band we were still trying to do things and we started doing podcasts. We thought we couldn't gig and we couldn't go out and see our fans so we thought about what we could do and that's the idea that we came up with, just so that we could still keep in contact with each other and still remain as a band but also so that we could still have that connection with our audiences and our fans. But it was also good in terms of what the whole world was going through and it worked massively, massively well. The rug was pulled from under our feet but we were still able to regroup and we made a real connection with people which was great.

“And I suppose things have shifted now. Things do feel different. Certainly at the time we were forced to slow down. We had to look inwards more and look just to our immediate radius and I think it was the time to think about what was important and to re-evaluate, to think about what you want in your life, about what really matters and the things you want to change. And I think it has made me so grateful now. I feel a new gratitude for being able to go out there and do what I do.”