• So Cow w/ Hot Cops, Junk Drawer & Shrug Life @ Voodoo, Belfast

    July 11, 2016 - By 

    Irish independent music is going through something of a renaissance at the moment with a burgeoning collective of bands attempting to show that music from Ireland is more than trad and U2. This evening at Voodoo we are treated to a selection of bands from various parts of the island who all bring something different to the scene. Dublin’s Shrug Life open affairs although this evening frontman Danny Carroll (below) goes it alone. Everything takes on a slower pace without the urgency of the drums or bass but Carroll strums through the set with enough assuredness and control that the…

  • Beyoncé @ Croke Park, Dublin

    July 11, 2016 - By 

    It’s hard to grasp the cultural phenomenon that is Beyoncé in 2016. Although always an icon at the forefront of the pop industry, Beyonce, despite her many years in the public consciousness, has only truly established herself as one of the primary voices of this generation with her most recent album, Lemonade. Her stunning journey into visual and musical avenues which explores both the personal and the political has seen Beyonce becoming more than just a pop singer – now she is a voice for women worldwide, for the Black Lives Matter campaign and for the oppressed everywhere. It’s been…

  • Dublin City Block Party 2016

    July 9, 2016 - By 

    With the summer calendar already bursting with an ever-growing number of Irish festivals, the ability to take festival goers somewhere new and exciting requires a pretty promising lineup as well as a distinctive and unique take on the conventional offering. Dublin City Block Party certainly delivered on both fronts with take two of their two day mid-summer blowout that took place right in the heart of the city at the Tivoli Grounds and District 8 last weekend. It has, in fact, taken me until now to finish this review having only just resurfaced after what can only be described as…

  • Foals w/ All Tvvins @ The Marquee, Cork

    July 8, 2016 - By 

    It’s hard to believe that the annual Cork based music and comedy festival Live at the Marquee launched 11 years ago with a Brian Wilson gig. It really doesn’t seem that long. In that time, surely the festival’s greatest success has been the massive variety of acts that have graced the 4,000 capacity Kellie Clarke designed venue in the Cork Showgrounds. Artists ranging from thrash metal legends Slayer to dance mainstays Faithless and from pop upstarts Little Mix to hip hop’s resident shrinking violet Kanye West have played to rapturous crowds over the years down at the Cork Marina. An…

  • Buille @ An Droichead, Belfast

    June 14, 2016 - By 

    Irish folk music, for the most part, remains strongly traditional. That said, it’s easy to forget that the ubiquitous bodhrán – an ancient instrument – didn’t claim widespread legitimacy in the Irish folk idiom until the 1960s, much in the same way that the cajon only filtered into the fiercely conservative flamenco tradition in the 1970s. Traditions evolve, even in seemingly diehard cultures, just as everything else in nature evolves. Buille, which means ‘beat,’ has danced to its own rhythms since it was formed by Cork-based Armagh brothers Niall and Caiomhin Vallely in 2005, releasing three albums of roots-based, genre-bending…

  • Candi Staton @ The Sugar Club, Dublin

    June 13, 2016 - By 

    As the final few bars of New Orleans’ funk maestros The Meters’ ‘Handclapping Song’ filter through the Sugar Club’s sound system, the lights dim and the sold out crowd show their appreciation following the appearance on stage by the Queen of Southern Soul, Candi Staton. Having begun her musical career as a teenager in the early 1950’s as a member of a gospel trio, it’s hard to imagine by looking at the lady standing in front of a highly anticipated audience that she is now 76 years of age. Staton starts off tonight’s proceedings with the slow yet funk fuelled…

  • Neil Young and Promise of the Real @ SSE Arena, Belfast

    June 8, 2016 - By 

    “If you’re here writing a newspaper piece or something, please try to ignore that…” So remarks 70-year-old Neil Young, quite possibly the coolest man on earth, a handful of songs into a career-spanning, increasingly rapturous set with Promise of the Real at Belfast’s downright reverential SSE Arena tonight. In typically unflustered fashion, he’s just stopped a few seconds into the intro of ‘Harvest Moon’ having neglected to attach his harmonica; a rare blip that not only serves as a brief reminder that even the greatest have their moments of infinitesimal fallibility but also that we’re in the presence of a master who – briefly setting aside his towering…

  • Sofar Sounds @ The Kino, Cork

    May 27, 2016 - By 

    It’s wonderful to see Cork landmark The Kino in proper use again. At one stage in recent memory it was the only independently run cinema in the entire country and, as a younger man, it hosted me as I indulged my love of music documentaries. Needless to say, it features prominently in the hearts of many throughout the country. Tonight, the old picture house is showcasing actual music in the form of Sofar Sounds and its grassroots and novel approach to live performance. With the seats removed, the cinema organically takes the shape of a natural music venue and, with…

  • The Last Shadow Puppets @ Olympia Theatre, Dublin

    May 27, 2016 - By 

    A youthful crowd assembled in the Olympia Theatre for the first of three performances, the live debut of The Last Shadow Puppets in Dublin. The majority of attendees were of similar age to me, approaching mid-twenties, whom I assumed had grown up with Alex Turner’s prolific lyrics and music as both an Arctic Monkey and Last Shadow Puppet, and had encountered Miles Kane as a Rascal along the way. There were a handful of families present, mostly with younger daughters a little younger than I was when The Age of The Understatement was released in 2008. You couldn’t help feeling…

  • Courtney Pine & Zoe Rahman @ Cathedral Quarter Arts Festival, Belfast

    May 17, 2016 - By 

    It’s not exactly a shocking revelation to say that jazz can be a ludicrously self-reverential medium, especially given the insular virtuosity required to play it to a world-class degree, so it’s pleasant that tonight, under this starry-ceilinged festival marquee, that Courtney Pine maintains a balanced composure; one that allows for moments of wild, wandering timbres but also gentle interplay with Zoe Rahman’s fervent piano playing. A courteous guest, Pine lays on the thanks thick and fast for the Cathedral Quarter Arts Festival organisers, prompting agreement from a largely excitable crowd who rightly recognise that jazz in Belfast isn’t exactly the…