AFTER a gap of 17 years, the Saw Doctors are back on top of the Irish music charts with their rollicking version of the Sugababes hit, "About You Now," which beat off international artists such as Pink and Kings of Leon to make it to number one in this week's Irish charts. Tuam's favorite sons haven't hit the top spot since "Hay Wrap" dominated the airwaves in September 1991.

"It's a lovely buzz to be number one again after all these years," says Davy Carton, lead singer with the Saw Doctors.

It's hard to believe the lads have been at it for 20 years; it seems only yesterday that Mike Scott of the Waterboys discovered the Saw Doctors playing in the back bar of the Quays Pub in Galway and asked the Tuam Shams to support the Waterboys on their Fisherman's Blues tour around Ireland and the U.K. I was at one of those shows, and I will go to my grave remembering it.

"We first played 'About You Now' on the Podge and Rodge show," explains Saw Doctors guitarist Leo Moran, who says that the band decided to release the single to benefit the Salerno Cystic Fibrosis Fund in Galway. To date, CD sales from "About You Now" have raised ?10,000 for the school fund.

This is a banner year for the Saw Doctors. They were honored at the Meteor Ireland Music Awards at the RDS with a Lifetime Achievement Award earlier this year and have sold out a second Olympia Theatre concert in Dublin scheduled for next week. They will be playing The Nokia here next March.