Amble Brings a Piece of Ireland, and Plenty of Family, to Lollapalooza
By: Shawna O’Hara – Photo by: Dennis Kelly
The front row of Amble’s Lollapalooza crowd looked less like a typical afternoon festival audience and more like an Irish reunion. Soccer jerseys lined the barricade, devoted fans sang and moved together, and the band was met with the kind of enthusiasm usually reserved for much later sets.
“We’re Amble,” singer Robbie Cunningham announced from the stage. “And we’re Irish.”
That much was immediately clear. Amble’s melodic rock is deeply intertwined with traditional Irish folk music, but the set never felt rooted in nostalgia. Instead, the band created the atmosphere of a community party, with the audience fully participating rather than simply watching. The group also debuted “Last Rites,” a new song set for release on August 14.
Chicago is familiar territory for Amble, who have previously played Schubas, Lincoln Hall, and Park West.
“They’re beautiful venues,” Ross McNerney said.
Robbie remembered Park West as a particularly important moment for the band. “That was huge,” he said. “To be in Chicago playing a venue like that…”
For Oisín McCaffrey, vocalist and guitarist, Chicago’s appeal is also personal. He has a significant amount of family in the city, something Robbie was quick to clarify.
“If there were 80 people at the Schubas show, 50 of them were related (to Oisín),” Robbie joked.
That family connection helped explain the warmth surrounding the band at Lollapalooza. At one point during the set, Amble told the crowd how much they loved returning to Chicago because there was “a lot of family” nearby. Judging by the fans gathered at the front, that family extended well beyond blood relatives.
That sense of closeness bleeds into the band’s recording process. Their debut album, Reverie, was recorded live in the studio, with the performances captured in one take and produced by the three members.
“Everything was live, and it was recorded in one take,” Cunningham said.
The approach was not the result of years of carefully developed studio preferences. The members first met only three years ago and entered the project without rigid ideas about how the music needed to be recorded.
“We just walked into a room, played the songs, and that was it,” Robbie said, before adding with impeccable timing, “Great album.”
Amble’s rise has been rapid, but all three members entered the band after living decidedly ordinary working lives. Robbie and Ross were teachers, while Oisín worked as a data scientist.
“I think we’re very lucky that we lived normal lives,” Robbie said. “It makes you stay humble, it makes you stay grounded, and it makes you stay in the present and realize how lucky you are.”
He spoke warmly about teaching and said he had found the work fulfilling, particularly because he loved working with children. Music, however, had always remained a driving passion.
“We did the nine-to-five. We sat in traffic Monday to Friday,” he said. “We’re just so grateful that we get to play music for a living.”
Their previous lives continue to serve as an anchor as the venues and audiences grow. Robbie said the members keep one another from getting carried away, while their parents and friends are equally willing to bring them back down to earth.
The band’s Irish identity remains central to its music, even as Amble spends more time touring outside of Ireland.
“Ireland is such a funny country,” Robbie said. “You can go anywhere in the world, and you’ll meet an Irish person. We’re everywhere.”
Fans living abroad frequently tell the band that hearing their music makes them feel closer to home. Ross added that the songs are still designed to travel beyond any single place.
“It’s loss, it’s meaning,” he said. “People can connect with the lyrics no matter where they are in the world. It’s an honor, really.”
For Robbie, hearing how listeners have attached Amble’s songs to their own experiences has changed the way he understands the importance of making music. The group receives messages from people moving through grief, joy, and difficult chapters of their lives.
“You step back from the tour, and you go, ‘This is what it’s for,’” he said. “It’s for people to experience life and get through life. That’s what music is all about. It’s such a privilege.”
Much of the band’s musical inheritance began at home. Robbie credited his mother, who introduced him to Irish music, Leonard Cohen, and John Prine during family drives to Galway and Leitrim. Oisín named Joni Mitchell as the songwriter who most inspires him to create, earning immediate teasing from his bandmates for not choosing his own mother. Ross then credited both his mother, who forced a stubborn young Ross to learn instruments, and his partner, who claims she helped write some of the songs.
That combination of sincerity and constant needling appears to be central to Amble’s chemistry. At Lollapalooza, it translated into a performance that felt intimate even inside one of the country’s largest festivals.
Amble did not simply bring a piece of Ireland to Chicago. They found that a piece of it was already waiting for them in the front row.
Check out more great interviews here!
Links:
Official: https://www.ambleofficial.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ambleofficial/
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@ambleofficial
