• Hope is Noise @ The Pavilion

    In the process of getting out to this gig, venturing out on a wet Thursday night, your writer wrenches his ankle, and as a result, spends the next 20 minutes hobbling to the Pavilion, just in time to miss most of debuting Cork/Italian lads The Order of the Mess‘ power-duo noise-rock assault. Their stuff on Soundcloud paints a rough but promising picture, that of a multifaceted, but bludgeoningly weighty aural attack. They’re well-received here. Settling in for Hope is Noise getting on with setup, it’s a decent crowd that litters the bar of the Pav, especially right before a Bank…

  • Stiff Little Fingers @ The Academy

    Jake Burns must surely hold the record for longest gestation period for a song in modern rock history. Back in 1983 when Stiff Little Fingers broke up, Burns met up with another singer from an Irish band who was in the same situation and they lamented their respective losses over a pint, or many. Burns went home and wrote the lyrics to ‘When We Were Young’, but it took him another thirty-five years to get around to the music. Phil Lynott was the man he shared his commiserations with back in that long-ago boozer, Burns tells the crowd in The…

  • Haim @ The Olympia, Dublin

    The Thin Air is packed into the standing section of Haim’s sold-out show in Dublin and we are very excited. For the best part of the last year, the music of the Californian sororal trio has dominated our music library; stubbornly refusing to let us tire of debut album Days Are Gone. Any niggling concerns that the live experience will disappoint disappear instantly as the coltish Haim sisters march on stage to an enormous Irish roar. They jump straight in, starting with ‘Falling’, and thus begins a show which does not ask for but rather grips your full attention.  Delivering…

  • Maximo Park @ Limelight 2

    Well and truly at the height of their indie-rock powers, Maximo Park are on the last leg of their European tour when they arrive in Belfast – and that very fact is backed up by what’s to be undeniably tight performance from the Newcastle band tonight. Starting, in true ‘album promo’ style, with the opening track off the new album, Give, Get, Take, the band set the bar for a highly energetic and for the most part, fast paced set of hip shuffling dance moves and near keyboard destruction chaos. With remarkably only one track from 2009’s Quicken The Heart on the list,…

  • In Review: Choice Music Prize 2014

    Now in its ninth year, perhaps the most pleasing thing about the Choice Music Prize – the undoubted impact of ten grand in a talented act’s bank account aside – is the chance to slow the pace and take a languid gander at just how much is good about the modern Irish music scene. The annual debate on those who lost out highlights encouraging depth (see Enemies, Nanu Nanu, Axis Of and God Is An Astronaut this year), and – as smaller past winners Julie Feeney, Super Extra Bonus Party, Jape and Adrian Crowley can attest – the award does…

  • St. Vincent @ The Olympia

    The Olympia Theatre quickly fills up as Slow Skies take to the stage as tonight’s warm-up for the impending spectacle of St Vincent. Possibly to make the latter’s immaculate stage set up possible, the former are down to headcount of three, and squeezed to the front of the stage. With the reduced set up, all the pressure is on the delicately soaring voice of Karen Sheridan (below) to carry them into the attention of the waiting crowd. After a slightly nervous start, she settles into the new surroundings and by the time they swell into on the shore (the lead…

  • The 1975 @ Ulster Hall, Belfast

    “Do you like cabbage and bacon?” and “Will you go to my formal with me?” are just a sample of the rather odd questions posed to Matthew Healy and Adam Hann from The 1975, by a giggle of teenage girls. The Thin Air was at a local radio station to see a private acoustic set prior to their headline slot in the Ulster Hall. We were the oldest people there. While the band played quite beautiful acoustic versions of their singles ‘Sex’ and ‘Chocolate’, their fans snapped photos excitedly, making us slightly sad that their full attention wasn’t focused on what…

  • Foals @ The Olympia

    Last time Foals played Dublin’s Olympia Theatre, eccentric frontman Yannick Philippakis took a wobbling stroll around the outer rim of the second floor balcony, pulling hip-swinging moves through the encore as he clung on with one hand. We can only assume the Olympia’s insurance company wasn’t in attendance: had they been, tonight might well have been subject to a safety veto. Foals, clearly, don’t do anything by halves. Emerging into a theatre borderline steaming from the storm outside, they firmly boot things into gear with a ‘Total Life Forever’, ‘Miami’ and ‘My Number’ trifecta, the singles launching a sing-along that…

  • All Tomorrow’s Parties: End of an Era Part 2

    All Tomorrow’s Parties is a festival that’s had a place close to my heart across the past four years of my life, since my first foray, lured by a reformation gig by underground heroes Sleep. So perhaps I should have had a sense of sorrow looming over me as I sat on a minibus toiling along a motorway in the south of England, for I was on my way to the final ATP festival, at least in its classic form in an English holiday camp. Truth be told, the mixture of familiarity (not limited to buying three times as much…

  • London Grammar, Go Wolf @ Limelight, Belfast

    London Grammar are what you’d call a success story. An indie band that had nothing whatsoever in terms of recorded output this time last year now find themselves with a number two debut album, a top 20 single and a near-sell out UK tour under their belts. This kind of instant and successful leap into the collective conscience is, presumably, what we refer to when we talk about bands ‘making it’ – and it just so happens that tonight’s support act is a band from Northern Ireland who have been tipped for big things themselves. Whilst Go Wolf‘s style couldn’t…