About

The Long Stay - early days

About The Long Stay

The Long Stay formed in 1991 when Brendan Donnelly, Brendan McCullough and Sean McAuley met while at university. After regular song writing meetings they recorded their first album “The Long Stay” (Tape cassette) at Patrick Delgatty’s Green Dolphin studios in Belfast in 1994. The first album was recorded over a two day session, with most of the recordings being done in a single take - just as they had been played at rehearsals.

The songs were recorded simply, without any effort on arrangement, or production. This focus on the basic art of song-writing led to a raw but sparkling selection of 12 songs, which was released to local critical acclaim. Limited resources however meant that the release was restricted to a small distribution. Unfortunately “The Long Stay” is no longer available and is regarded as a valuable collector’s item.

Moody Day - Image by Micky Donnelly

EP Release “Moody Day" (1997)

After recording their first tape cassette album, The Long stay played around the live circuit for some time, before deciding to focus on recording some more songs. The band eventually returned to the studio in 1996, this time recording with Joe Goudie at ‘Joe’s Garage’.
Out of these recordings The Long Stay released their first EP Moody Day. The title track of this release received much acclaim in the local press, and made it regularly onto play lists for the all the local radio stations. Moody Day became a regular feature on Radio Ulster shows fronted by radio personalities such as Gerry Anderson, George Jones, Cherry McIllwaine and John Bennett. After playing several Radio Concerts, the title track, and other tracks from the Moody Day EP, also made it onto the play-lists for Downtown Radio and Cool FM.

In the way of all things - Image by Micky Donnelly

EP Release “In the way of all things” (1998)

With this success of “Moody Day”, The Long Stay were encouraged to release another EP titled In The Way Of All Things in 1998. As before, the title track was greeted with excellent reviews and once again made it onto the play-listings of all local radio stations. The title track was also played on BBC Radio 1 for a short while.

First Collection - Image by Micky Donnelly

Album release First Collection (2003)

First Collection became The Long Stay’s first CD album and contains all the songs released on the previous EPs. This album contains a wide ranging and distinctive set of songs. The first song to be released from the album to radio was It’s Never Over, a soft soulful track, which again made all the local play-listings.
In this album the band fully display their love of strong melody and major hook-lines together with a mature feel for arrangement. First Collection retains the band’s distinctly acoustic style.

Fear of Water image inspired by
Micky Donnelly

Album Release Fear of Water (2017)

After a period of away from the music scene, The Long Stay returned with a second studio album Fear of Water released in 2017. Several tracks from the album were picked up by local radio, with Coming and Going and Looking for you both receiving aiplay from Radio Ulster. The well regarded Folk and Tumble website also weighed in on the album declaring it as potentially their pick for Album of the year.

Space Race image inspired by Micky Donnelly

Space Race (2021)

Space Race is the latest single to be released by The Long Stay. It looks at the amazing technological advancements and contrasts them with the overwhelming issues in our world. Economic disparity, refugee displacement, misuse of natural resources, inequality issues, conflict an repression. These are all issues affecting our world. Should we really be racing towards populating another planet, or should we use our intelligence to best improve our own world.....

Sometimes (July 2021)

Sometimes is the latest recording from The Long Stay. Sometimes takes a look at life within the Pandemic from the point of view of an individual. We all have struggles and our Mental Health can be challenged at various point, no less when we are isolated and sheltering. Sometimes tells us to be strong, there are things we can't change, or get out of the way of, but we need to hang in there and keep going, or in the case of The Long Stay, keep the music going.