The booking of Dermot Kennedy at Syracuse’s Empower FCU Amphitheater this September doesn’t require much framing — a 32-date North American tour behind a new album, a 17,500-seat outdoor room, the career arc of an artist who started busking on Dublin’s Grafton Street and has not stopped moving upward since. The Weight of the Woods Tour lands in central New York on a Saturday night, which is as uncomplicated as major concert announcements get. The more interesting story is how Kennedy got here.
About Dermot Kennedy
Kennedy was born in Rathcoole, County Dublin in 1991 and holds a degree in Classical Music from Maynooth University — a biographical footnote that explains more about the architecture of his songwriting than most of his press coverage bothers to address. He began performing publicly at seventeen, busking on Grafton Street, which is how a generation of Dublin pedestrians encountered him before he signed with Island Records in the UK and Interscope in the United States.
His 2019 debut, Without Fear, entered both the Irish and UK Albums Charts at number one and became the best-selling debut album in Ireland of the 21st century. Sonder followed in 2022. The Weight of the Woods, released April 3 via Interscope, is his third studio album — and his third consecutive UK number-one, a distinction no Irish solo artist had previously held. The fourteen-track record was largely built near Kennedy’s rural Irish home with producer Gabe Simon, with additional sessions at Simon’s Nashville studio, and draws heavily from Kennedy’s native country’s landscape and tradition. He has accumulated nearly four billion global streams and earned platinum certification in more than a dozen countries. His reputation as a live performer — capable of holding a room that size — is what makes this date make sense.
About Empower FCU Amphitheater
The Empower FCU Amphitheater at 490 Restoration Way, Syracuse holds 17,500 and is among the primary outdoor venues serving central New York. It is the right scale for an artist at this stage — large enough to reflect his actual audience, open enough to let the material breathe. September in upstate New York still holds.
Tickets
Dermot Kennedy: The Weight of the Woods Tour plays Empower FCU Amphitheater on Saturday, September 26, 2026 at 8:00 PM. Tickets are on sale now.