• Docs Ireland: Town of Strangers & When All Is Ruin Once Again

    June 28, 2019 - By 

    A weird coincidence treated Docs Ireland attendees to a pair of documentaries set in and around Gort, a small Galway town near the Clare border. Treasa O’Brien’s Town of Strangers is the more immediately charming of the two, an assemblage of residents who find themselves, through birth, accident or chance, sharing the town. O’Brien herself is a casual presence in the film: she was in the town trying to cast non-actors for a scripted feature, but found herself drawn towards the energy and personality of the people who showed up at auditions, and decided to stick around, living out of her van.…

  • The Divine Comedy – Office Politics

    June 28, 2019 - By 

    Neil Hannon has always been, rather consciously, something of an anachronism in contemporary pop – an urbane, arch throwback to suave crooners and irreverent singer-songwriters of the 1960s. In a way, this made sense in the ’90s, when The Divine Comedy were at their commercial height. After all, Britpop juggernauts Oasis and Blur were fetishists of the ’60s, lifting the Beatles’ and Kinks’ aesthetics from the middle part of that decade; Jarvis Cocker, when not drawing inspiration from Serge Gainsbourg, shared Hannon’s obsession with the wry, literary Scott Walker. But while Albarn and Cocker combined those influences with more contemporary sensibilities, Hannon was a purist –…

  • Liam Gallagher Set For 3Arena Show

    June 27, 2019 - By 

    Liam Gallagher will play Dublin later in the year. The solo artist and Oasis frontman will play 3Arena on Sunday, November 24th. He last played the city last year, at Malahide Castle as part of his As You Were tour. Tickets go on sale at 9am on Friday, July 12th. The 3Arena show takes place as part of a European arena tour that will follow the release of his forthcoming second album, Why Me? Why Not.

  • Mixtape Preview: The Promise – The Making of Darkness on the Edge of Town

    June 27, 2019 - By 

    In the latest installment of Mixtape, a season of music films curated by Feature, the Oh Yeah Music Centre will play host to a screening of Thom Zimny’s 2010 Bruce Springsteen doc The Promise – The Making of Darkness on the Edge of Town on July 3rd. As modern retrospective music films go, none have pulled off conveying the bliss and burden of mounting superstardom – the legal issues, the towering pressure, the creative gestation – with the same power and panache as Zimny’s film. With his 1975 third album, the critically and commercially devoured Born To Run having made him a star beyond his wildest…

  • Watch: Gross Net – Gentrification

    June 28, 2019 - By 

    If there’s a busier Irish musician than Philip Quinn, please, send them our way. Over the years, the Belfast musician has performed in myriad guises: from releasing music as Charles Hurts and playing guitar in the recently-disbanded Girls Names, to making up one-third of the already hugely-promising Grave Goods, his versatility has always ran parallel with fecundity. Bands, collaborations and the odd side-project aside, it’s in his main solo guise as Gross Net where the full weight and majesty of Quinn’s art comes into view. Taking from his eagerly-anticipated second studio album, Gross Net Means Gross Net, ‘Gentrification’ is one of his most cohesive and assured efforts to…

  • Pizza Pizza Records Present: The Big Slice

    June 26, 2019 - By 

    Dundalk’s indie imprint par excellence, Pizza Pizza Records, will host the first ever The Big Slice on Saturday, July 13th. An all-day, two-stage event bringing together eclectic sounds and culture to the Spirit Store, it finds the label curating a bill “specially to include artists that we really love and we are really excited about having involved.” As well as antiques, vinyl and clothes markets on the day, as well as Pizza Pizza Records DJs and art workshops, the following acts will perform. Best of all, entry is absolutely free.

  • Emma Langford w/ Nathan O’Regan @ The Duncairn, Belfast

    June 26, 2019 - By 

    It’s almost a little too warm this evening in the Duncairn Centre’s beautiful theatre space. It’s also possible everyone is a little hot under the collar from rushing to the venue, some seasonal marching to the north of Belfast has made getting here on time a challenging proposition and people are still arriving as our host welcomes the crowd and introduces the evening’s support, Nathan O’Regan. Once the Cork-born singer-songwriter takes to the stage it becomes clear his songs are a lesson in measured restraint; it’s obvious he could push his voice harder, that he is more than capable of…

  • Body & Soul 2019 (Sunday)

    June 26, 2019 - By 

    There is a chill in the air as drops of rain pitter-patter down on the tents that litter the grounds of Ballinlough Castle, County Westmeath. The final day of Body and Soul is upon the hordes of punters that have gathered here and for a few, their time is up. Several parts of the campsites now lie vacant, leaving only flattened squares of grass and tiny metal canisters in their place. For those that have stayed there is still a whole slew of acts to be seen. Many early risers linger around the Midnight Circus tent, popping in for shelter…