On Saturday, Mar. 21st, 2026, the Mary Webb Centre for the Arts in Highgate hosted the Steel City Rovers, back for their 3rd visit, having performed before in 2014 and 2023. An interesting note was that one of the band members couldn’t be at the MWC but his family was with us. They started off the evening with a wonderful instrumental, one of many during the evening which featured Mark, who over the evening played the flute, a mandola and a Scottish bag pipes. They then followed with a great Celtic song. The lead singer Ryan and his brother Joel playing guitar did most of the vocals. They then featured Mark on a mandola which is like a mandolin, different and very good. Ryan mentioned that in January they played with the Stratford Symphony who wanted to feature Mark and his Scottish bag pipes. They also played an amazing instrumental that had the audience clapping along, something that happened several times during the evening without any encouragement from the band. They were certainly having a good time playing and the audience was loving it all as well. During the intermission, all of the band went down to the art gallery to mingle with folks. The second half started with “Old Cale”, based on Caledonia where Ryan and Joel grew up. They sang a song about a farmers’ market that saw Ryan play a well-used washboard. “A Single Malt of Knowledge” was another very interesting song. With Ryan on the accordion and Mark on the mandola, this one got the audience clapping along. Great to hear. They sang a Celtic gospel song which was wonderful. For their encore, after the extended standing ovation, they performed a song sung to a prisoner going to the gallows. Our thanks to our sound tech Joel Morningstar and our sponsors for this concert, Main and Market in Ridgetown.
Joel McKenna, Ryan McKenna, Danno O’Shea, Charlie Coughlin and Mark Fletcher