The Live at the Marquee gig series is well and truly underway, with Riverdance getting things off to a flying start last Thursday.

There's a healthy selection of music and comedy yet to come, with the Leeside programme stretching out all the way to July 14th.

To celebrate, we've unearthed a few quirky facts about the acts on the Live at the Marquee bill.

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1) Although he's huge in Ireland, NATHAN CARTER is actually a Liverpool native. The 25-year-old country star's parents are both from Northern Ireland, though.

 

2) If at first you don't succeed, try, try again. That's a motto that KODALINE are familiar with; the Dublin band were formerly known as 21 Demands and were runners-up on RTE's 'You're a Star' before changing their name in 2011. These days, they're hanging out with Courteney Cox in LA. Well for some.


 

3) JOHN LEGEND may be a superstar these days, but before he made it big he was a session musician. Some well-known tunes he's played on/sang backing vocals on include Lauryn Hill's 'Everything is Everything', Alicia Keys' 'You Don't Know My Name' and Jay-Z's 'Encore', from his 2003 'Black Album'.

 

4) ELLIE GOULDING is a keen runner. Even when she's on tour, she tries to run 5 or 6 miles per day. She's run several half-marathons, too, with an impressive P.B. of 1 hour and 41 minutes.


 

5) DAMIEN RICE is not the only musician in his family. The Celbridge man is a second cousin of David Arnold, the renowned composer of film scores for five Bond films, as well as Independence Day (1996), Godzilla (1998) and TV series Sherlock.

 

6) STATUS QUO are probably best known for their 1977 hit 'Rockin' All Over the World', but the song was actually written and first recorded by Creedence Clearwater Revival frontman John Fogerty in 1975. The 'Quo later re-recorded it as 'Running All Over the World' in 1988 for Sports Relief.

 

7) Beards may be in these days, but ZZ TOP's Billy Gibbons and Dusty Hill have been rocking those magnificent iconic facewarmers for many a decade. The drummer's name - and the only member without facial fuzz, or at least facial fuzz as lengthy as his bandmates - is Frank Beard.


 

8) Life could have panned out very differently for LIONEL RICHIE. As a teenager, he was a star tennis player and even won a tennis scholarship for a university in his native Alabama – but he dropped out after two years. He then considered becoming a priest before joining The Commodores in the late 1960s.