General Fiasco

Based in Belfast. Annoying the Neighbours. Not the Australian ones. The band was formed by the Strathern brothers Owen and Enda and Shane Davey who met at St. Mary’s Grammar School Magherafelt. After Shane’s departure, he was replaced by Stephen “Leaky” Leacock who they met at Rainey Endowed School in Magherafelt, County Londonderry, Northern Ireland. They formed General Fiasco in early 2007 and played their first gig at the Glasgowbury Festival near their home town on July 26th of that year. They soon supported bands such as The Wombats, One Night Only, The Pigeon Detectives and The Enemy, and played at Oxegen, Belsonic and the Reading and Leeds Festivals. Their debut single Rebel Get By was released on 10 November 2008. In an interview Owen said how they got their name. “There were loads of names going about. Someone came up with General Music which no one really liked and I came up with Marley Jedrejak Fiasco. So it was just a combination of two terrible names. There was someone in my class at school called Jedrejak, I think they were Australian. I just thought it was a really cool name.”

The band were invited to play at the 2008 Reading & Leeds festival as part of the BBC Introducing line-up. Their appearance was picked by NME as one of “the ten hopes for the near future.”[citation needed] Since then they have been part of the BBC Introducing line-up at the Electric Proms in October 2008. Rebel Get By received plays from Zane Lowe, Steve Lamacq, Colin Murray, Huw Stephens, John Kennedy, Jenny Huston and Sara Cox and was playlisted at Xfm. They were later invited to perform an acoustic set at Jo Whiley’s prestigious Little Noise Sessions. Also, on 21st March 2009 they supported Snow Patrol at the Odyssey Arena in Belfast. BBC’s Across The Line said of the band, “These boys are going places, mark our words. We’ve watched them grow up and, like a proud uncle, we’re gonna show off their brilliance to you until you agree with us.”.The band completed three tours in late 2009 including a UK headline tour as well as main support to both The Enemy and The Answer. The band confirmed that they are supporting Snow Patrol on their Homecoming Ward Park date on 5th June, 2010.