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Bottle rockers

DUBLIN rockers The Coronas have announced a pre-Christmas Belfast gig.

The band - singer Danny O'Reilly, guitarist Dave McPhillips, bassist Graham Knox and drummer Conor Egan - will play the Mandela Hall on Thursday December 18.

The four-piece played the same venue two years ago, having worked their way up from gigs at Auntie Annies and The Empire.

In Dublin the band have played The O2, sold out a string of dates at The Olympia and supported Paul McCartney and Justin Timberlake, while they also opened for Bon Jovi at Slane.

Current single All The Others got to number three in the Irish charts and their latest tour is timed to promote their fourth album, due for release next month. It is the follow-up to Heroes or Ghosts (2007), Tony Was an ExCon (2009) and Closer To You (2011).

Danny, whose mother is the singer Mary Black, told Scene two years ago that the guys "nearly prefer Belfast audiences to the Dublin ones". "The last time in The Empire the crowd knew every word, so it's really nice for us to see we're not just big in the Republic. We're making progress [in the north] and it's great to be doing the Mandela. It's an ambition of mine to play the Ulster Hall."

As for the band name, Danny pointed out that it has nothing to do with a Mexican beer. "We were called Corona originally. We got it from the film Almost Famous, because there's an old-school typewriter in it called the Smith Corona. Then we had to change it because there was another band called Corona, so we just went for The Coronas." * The Coronas play the Mandela Hall in Belfast on December 18. Tickets (£17.50) available from the Queen's students' union and Ticketmaster outlets.