Lucy Rose live at the CQAF festival marquee in Belfast with support from Jake Isaac. Photos by Ruth Kelly.
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Wilko Johnson live at CQAF in Belfast with support from Billy Boy Miskimmin’s Mercy Lounge. Photos by Sara Marsden.
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Gaz Coombes live at CQAF in Belfast, with support from Ciaran Lavery. Photos by Alan Maguire.
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On Tuesday night, Shot Glass theatre performed the second night of Three Strikes at Cathedral Quarter Arts Festival, in the unusual surrounds of the Dark Horse Bar. A new concept in live theatre, Shot Glass bring edgy, dark theatre right into the pub. At three discreet tables in the bar, the protagonists sit, waiting their moment, the crowd having to twirl around to see from which corner the voice is coming. From Mary Jordan’s effortlessly cool account of her unusual application of Brazil Nuts and her husband’s subsequent demise to Gerry Crossan’s delightfully bizarre rant as ‘Blow-Dry Barry’ the pub goers…
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On Friday, May 8, the Cathedral Quarter Arts Festival will host a free early evening screening of Beats Rhymes and Life: The Travels of a Tribe Called Quest at Belfast’s Black Box. Having forged a 20-year run as one of the most innovative and influential hip hop bands of all time, the Queens NY collective have kept a generation hungry for more of their groundbreaking music since their much publicized breakup in 1998. Beats, Rhymes & Life (also the title of the band’s 1996 record) balances brutal honesty with a heartfelt devotion as it tracks A Tribe Called Quest’s mid-1980’s formation in…
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We joined English folk-rock sisters The Staves on their Irish tour, taking in CQAF at Belfast with support from Ciaran Lavery and then to Dublin for their show in the Olympia theatre. Photos by Ruth Kelly and Tara Thomas. Belfast by Ruth Kelly Dublin by Tara Thomas
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It’s cold, wet, and your writer is standing outside a metal fence at Custom House Square. “Why,” you ask? Well, as Soup DuJour herself quoted “Outside it may be tragic, but in here we feel it’s magic!” It’s time for a very special Tease-O-Rama at Belfast’s Cathedral Quarter Arts Festival. We enter the massive marquee; its black ceiling is strung with lights to emulate a night sky – setting the tone for a majestic show indeed. The night is kicked off with a jazz and swing set by J.B. & the Riviera Swing Band. Breaking out classics such as ‘The Lady Is a Tramp’, ‘Beyond the…
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Opening with an extended version of ‘Forever’ and followed by the undeniable Madchester groove of ‘Weirdo’, The Charlatans get their CQAF headline gig off to an expectedly strong start, following a reportedly equally triumphant show in Dublin the night before. New album tracks like ‘Talking In Tones’ and ‘So Oh’ sound more like 1995 than 2015 and are welcomed like old favourites. However, the starry-roofed tent inhabitants explode with collective excitement as the fan favourites of ‘North Country Boy’, ‘One To Another’ – a song that’s been given a new generation of fans through soundtracking the E4 sitcom My Mad Fat…
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“Och wise up!” chimes a female voice from a few rows back. Josh Rouse – smartly dressed in double denim and a dapper hat, gifted with a sweet, sleepy voice – has just announced that he is about to play his last song, and has been roundly chastised in the most affectionate way possible. The fact that the end of Rouse’s gig has been met with such a fine example of the Northern Irish vernacular should indicate how warmly his performance has been received. There is, to reach for that hoary cliché, a lot of love in the room –…
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Ahead of the legendary English drummer’s appearance at Belfast’s Cathedral Quarter Arts Festival’s Marquee on Friday, May 8, Mike McGrath Bryan chats to Mick “Woody” Woodmansey, best known for his work with David Bowie and the Spiders from Mars. Hi Woody. You played on four of Bowie’s most influential and important records. How did you come into his fold, so to speak? I had played with Mick Ronson in a band called The Rats in the city of Hull, East Yorkshire. We were a blues based progressive rock outfit playing on the University circuit, supporting major acts at that time, plus we…