Who is the best band in the world in 2024? The Road to the Golden Shamrock provides answers.

The course of The Road to the Golden Shamrock

The start of the “Road to the Golden Shamrock”, an unwieldy but fitting name (seems to be a thing of ours) as we are able to satisfy subjective musical tastes with pure sportiness. a) want to cheekily stand up to them and b) the journey is the destination.

In this case, the target in question was divided into three parts, like the leaves of the “Golden Shamrock”:

1. Entertainment for you, you loyal fans,
2. get to know new bands,
3. network better with each other.

32 bands compete against each other

That’s why we had 32 bands compete against each other in two groups with a direct knockout round, just like in sports tournaments like the soccer World Cup. Of course, we left us out so as not to distort the competition unnecessarily – the real deciders were to be the fans, who were able to vote for their favorite band on Instagram, Facebook, YouTube and WhatsApp. One point was awarded for each platform won, which were then added together. If there was still a tie, the “goal ratio”, i.e. the total number of individual votes, counted.

The playlist for the tournament

As much as we love vinyl, a streaming provider can come in handy when you want to quickly and heavily immerse yourself in the diverse world of our supposedly small genre. Listen to “The Road to the Golden Shamrock” with a nice glass of Mettermalt Whiskey!

Preliminary round, quarter-finals, semi-finals

But now off to “The Road to the Golden Shamrock”, the most entertaining Celtic punk tournament on social media! As it was also our first time, we decided not to have a qualifying round that would blow up the frame and tried to keep the pairings in the first round on an equal footing, in line with the objectives mentioned at the beginning. Of course, in addition to hard facts such as rough tour sizes, follower and listener numbers, our gut feelings and friendships as a subjective moment cannot be left out of this selection, as music always has to do with emotions. Bands from more than a dozen countries, from Indonesia to Hungary, were represented.

Top duel in the preliminary round

Exceptions, the bands: “The Dubliners” and “The Wolfe Tones“. Rebels at heart, but not yet Celtic punks. However, the veterans have significantly influenced Shane and his Pogues, who in turn, as genre pioneers, have shaped the rest of today’s mix music style like probably no other band. Interestingly, they were knocked out of the preliminary round against their idols The Dubliners. In the second top duel, Dropkick Murphys defeated Flogging Molly 3:1. The Wolfe Tones were also eliminated in the first round. Colleagues “The Rumjacks” from Australia won humorlessly 4:0 against heavyweights “The Dreadnought” from Canada. By contrast, “The Cloves and the Tobacco” (be sure to give them a listen, they do Celtic punk in Indonesian) and “Irish Moutarde” (FR) were a much closer 3:2.

Draw between Slovenia and the USA

In the second round, there was the first 2:2 draw between “Happy Ol’ McWeasel” (Slovenia) and “The Killigans” (USA). When the total votes were counted, we were dripping with sweat from our paddy hat brims. What a finish! Our Slovenian friends advanced to the quarter-finals with 382 votes to 381. Otherwise, the Murphys went on the hunt for legends with a clear 4-0 win against the Dubliners.
The fact that the big boys from Massachusetts have already written genre-defining hits and anthems, especially for many younger fans of Celtic Punk, was also shown unchanged in the quarter-finals: 4:0 sweep against the German-Irish neighbors “Mr. Irish Bastard“. But the duel between “Happy Ol’ Mcweasel” was once again much more exciting. Another draw, this time against our favorite Saarlanders “The Feelgood McLouds“.

Underdog in the semi-finals

Many thanks to the sporting dedication of the Slovenians, who mobilized their fans to vote like no other band. It wasn’t quite enough and so our tour mates from the McLouds entered the semi-finals as underdogs, alongside the highly esteemed Fiddler’s Green (3:1 against “The Rumjacks”, was that not only great music but also a bit of home advantage? 😘 ) and the Irish-Canadian combo “The Mahones“, which our friends from “Tir Nan Og” were at least able to snatch a point. Strong performance!

We would have liked to have seen the direct duel between the main band (Fiddler’s Green) and the support band (The Feelgood McLouds), who were on tour together at the time, but the tournament schedule put a spanner in the works: Fiddler’s Green vs The Mahones 4:0, Dropkick Murphys vs The Feelgood McLouds 4:0.

Shortening with AI

Finale oho!

Let’s make a long story short, the cup “The Road to the Golden Shamrock” will go to North America in 2024. The Dropkick Murphy’s defeated Fiddler’s Green 3:1. In the match for third place, The Feelgood McLouds climbed onto the winners’ podium.

Well barked, underdog! Wear your bronze medal with pride! Although “The Road to the Golden Shamrock” could only take place digitally, we had three medals made, which the bands then received in the real world.

Who is the best band in the world?

Who is the best band in the world? I don’t know, the main thing is that music continues to bring people together. In “The Road to the Golden Shamrock” we tried to help you discover new music and connect bands worldwide. We hope you had fun and were able to discover something new. Here you can find all the bands that took part in “The Road to the Golden Shamrock”:

We have embedded the “The Road to the Golden Shamrock” Spotify playlist here. You can also click to open Spotify directly.