Mike Scott, Steve Wickham and Steve Earle delivered a glorious, unruly celebration of Fisherman’s Blues in Valencia. There are concerts where you listen to a band. And then there are concerts where, for a couple of hours, you somehow find yourself transported somewhere else. On Thursday night, The Waterboys turned Valencia’s Roig Arena into a giant Irish-American folk pub, with Mike Scott at the helm, Steve Earle bringing the spirit of Nashville and Texas, and — perhaps most importantly for long-time Waterboys fans — the extraordinary Steve Wickham back on violin.

Yes, that Steve Wickham.

The original Waterboys violinist whose playing helped give Fisherman’s Blues its unmistakable Celtic soul was back alongside Mike Scott, more than three decades after those legendary sessions in Ireland.

And what a reunion it was.

 THIS WASN’T JUST A NOSTALGIA TRIP

The danger with revisiting an album as beloved as Fisherman’s Blues is that nostalgia can easily become a museum piece.

Not here.

Scott has deliberately conceived The Fisherman’s Blues Revue as something much looser — inspired by the spirit of the old sessions rather than simply reproducing the 1988 album from beginning to end.

The result was a concert that felt wonderfully unpredictable.

The Waterboys opened with “Don’t Bang the Drum”, immediately establishing that this was going to be a full-blooded Waterboys night rather than a polite trip down memory lane.

“A Girl Called Johnny” followed, before the Roig Arena erupted into one of the great Waterboys communal moments — “The Whole of the Moon.”

Thousands of voices singing along turned the enormous arena into something considerably smaller and warmer.

Then came the folk.

And plenty of it.

 STEVE WICKHAM: THE SOUND OF FISHERMAN’S BLUES

For anyone who bought Fisherman’s Blues when it appeared in 1988, seeing Steve Wickham standing beside Mike Scott again was probably worth the ticket price alone.

Wickham’s violin is one of the defining sounds of the Waterboys’ great Irish period, and his return gave the evening an authenticity that no collection of substitute musicians could have replicated.

“Raggle Taggle Gypsy,” “The Stolen Child,” “When Will We Be Married?” and the beautifully chaotic “Sweet Thing / Blackbird / Wild Jig” brought the Irish folk influence right to the centre of the evening.

And then there was “Come Back to Galway”, drawn from the huge treasure trove of material uncovered from the Fisherman’s Blues sessions.

It was a reminder that Fisherman’s Blues wasn’t simply an album.

It was an explosion of creativity.

Mike Scott and his musicians recorded hundreds of pieces of music during that period, much of it never released. The recently issued Atlantic Rain has opened another window onto those remarkable sessions.

ENTER STEVE EARLE

And then Valencia got another major treat.

Steve Earle walked on stage.

The American singer-songwriter has long been one of the great figures of roots music, and his presence changed the musical geography of the concert almost immediately.

Suddenly the Irish folk-rock of The Waterboys was colliding with Americana, country, blues and the Texas songwriting tradition.

Earle performed some of his own classics, including “Copperhead Road,” “Guitar Town” and “My Old Friend the Blues”, before becoming something closer to another member of the Waterboys.

Guitar, mandolin, vocals — Earle wasn’t there simply to sing a couple of guest numbers and disappear backstage.

He became part of the machine.

And it worked.

There was a particularly enjoyable sense that two great songwriters were enjoying themselves rather than trying to prove anything.

Earle has previously joked that he only ever wanted to be in three bands: The Rolling Stones, NRBQ and The Waterboys.

For one night in Valencia, he finally got his wish.

MIKE SCOTT STILL KNOWS HOW TO WORK A ROOM

At the centre of everything was Mike Scott.

Now a veteran of more than four decades of Waterboys music, Scott remains a wonderfully eccentric frontman — part folk troubadour, part rock star, part poet and part travelling preacher.

One minute he was at the piano.

The next he was attacking the guitar.

Then came the hat, the poses and the unmistakable voice.

But the most impressive thing was the sense of freedom.

Scott wasn’t simply recreating 1988.

He was revisiting it, reshaping it and allowing the musicians around him to push the music somewhere new.

That is the difference between a tribute show and a living band.

 FROM “BANG ON THE EAR” TO “FISHERMAN’S BLUES”

The second half gathered momentum until the Roig Arena was barely sitting down at all.

“And a Bang on the Ear” became a huge communal celebration before the band launched into “Galway Girl.”

And then came the moment everybody had been waiting for.

“Fisherman’s Blues.”

The opening chords were enough.

The Roig Arena erupted.

For a few minutes, Valencia didn’t feel like Valencia.

It felt like Ireland.

There were arms in the air, people singing, dancing and shouting the words back at Scott.

The song has always had that effect — a deceptively simple piece of music that somehow carries the feeling of escape, freedom, the open road and the sea.

And with Steve Wickham’s violin back where it belonged, the emotional connection to the original Fisherman’s Blues era was impossible to miss.

 AND THEN — ONE MORE SONG

The evening finished with “Will the Circle Be Unbroken,” bringing Scott and Earle together once more.

It was an appropriately traditional ending to a concert that had spent the previous couple of hours blurring the boundaries between rock, folk, country, blues and Celtic music.

The Waterboys have always been difficult to categorise.

That has been part of their appeal.

But Thursday night’s show demonstrated something else.

The Waterboys aren’t simply celebrating their past. They’re still capable of making that past sound alive.

And with Steve Wickham back on violin and Steve Earle joining the party, The Fisherman’s Blues Revue turned out to be much more than a greatest-hits concert.

It was a reunion.

A folk-rock party.

A journey back to Ireland.

And, for one extraordinary night, the Roig Arena became the biggest pub in Valencia.

🍀🎻🎸 THE WATERBOYS — 3 SEPTEMBER 2026 — ROIG ARENA, VALENCIA

VERDICT: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

The Fisherman’s Blues Revue proved that some musical chemistry simply doesn’t disappear with time.

THE WATERBOYS & STEVE EARLE — ROIG ARENA SETLIST

SET ONE — THE WATERBOYS

1. Don’t Bang the Drum
2. Glastonbury Song
3. How Long Will I Love You?
4. A Girl Called Johnny — followed by the band introduction
5. The Whole of the Moon
6. We Will Not Be Lovers
7. The Pan Within
8. The Raggle Taggle Gypsy — traditional
9. Sweet Thing / Blackbird
10. Strange Boat
11. Dunford’s Fancy — instrumental
12. The Stolen Child — W.B. Yeats

SET TWO — STEVE EARLE JOINS THE WATERBOYS

13. Copperhead Road — Steve Earle
14. Guitar Town — Steve Earle
15. My Old Friend the Blues — Steve Earle
16. I Ain’t Ever Satisfied — Steve Earle & The Dukes
17. Volver a Celaya — Steve Earle & Los Lobos
18. Kansas — Mike Scott & Steve Earle
19. When Ye Go Away
20. When Will We Be Married?
21. Dead Flowers — The Rolling Stones cover
22. Come Back to Galway
23. Has Anybody Here Seen Hank?
24. And a Bang on the Ear — Mike Scott & Steve Earle, with Earle adding new lyrics

ENCORE

25. The Galway Girl — Steve Earle
26. Fisherman’s Blues
27. Will the Circle Be Unbroken? — Mike Scott & Steve Earle

THE SPECIAL INGREDIENT: Legendary Waterboys fiddler Steve Wickham, whose violin was such a defining part of the Fisherman’s Blues era, was reunited with Mike Scott for the revue. The official Waterboys announcement confirms that Wickham rejoined the band for these shows, while Steve Earle performed as a full member of the revue, contributing vocals, guitar and mandolin.

Report by Will McCarthy

Article copyright ‘24/7 Valencia’

Photos copyright Phillip Solomonson/ ’24/7 Valencia’