• Ben Folds @ Cathedral Quarter Arts Festival, Belfast

    May 14, 2018 - By 

    Ben Folds is a consummate master of contrast. Equally adept at playing plaintive ballads as he is at belting out looney tunes rock and roll, he comes across as a younger, only slightly less grizzled Randy Newman. Folds’ lyrics certainly have the same bite, and are similarly coupled with ear-worm melodies that belie the sardonic nature of the subject matter hiding in plain sight. So, during this evening’s lengthy set the audience is treated to particularly poetic versions of ‘Still Fighting It’, a beautiful tableau of a father-son relationship, and ‘Fred Jones Part 2’, another of Folds’ character studies whose…

  • The Go! Team @ Custom House Square, Belfast

    May 11, 2018 - By 

    This evening sees Brighton based musical magpies The Go! Team bring their kaleidoscopic, crate digging pop to Custom House Square as part of the Cathedral Quarter Arts Festival. With a stellar archive of hits at their disposal, a crack nine piece band and high energy support from dance pop chameleons The Correspondents, tonight’s performance promises to kick the weekend off with an amphetamine rush of sound and colour. Purveyors of the much-maligned dance subgenre ‘electro swing’, The Correspondents are prone to mixing campy cabaret stylings and big band samples with pummelling drum and bass work outs which could well make…

  • Natalia Beylis w/ AR~DS, Branwen Kavanagh, Little Movies @ A4 Sounds, Dublin

    April 23, 2018 - By 

    Hunters Moon presents An Evening of Experimental Performance + Sound took place in the gallery room of A4 Sounds, an art space off Dorset Street in Dublin’s north inner city. The night began in relaxed fashion, as Little Movies, the duo of Ben Donohue and Morgan Buckley, sat on stage facing each other across their modular synths. It looked like a game of Battleship and sounded like an alternate-universe take on ‘Dueling Banjos’. Two opposing banks of sound played out throughout the performance: one, a series of rippling waves, floating bubbles that shifted and grew to different shapes and sizes;…

  • Other Voices at ANAM @ The Helix, Dublin

    April 13, 2018 - By 

    North Dublin gets a lot of bad press. We hear so many tales of ludicrous individuals and gangs that it’s easy to make the assumption that the North of the city is a place lacking in substance. Presented by DCU and Other Voices, ANAM is the start of an annual showcase of what culture lies bubbling beneath the surface of the city, but its importance is felt most by the local residents of the North side. Starting off the night are Discovery Gospel Choir (below), a harmonically powerful, multi-cultural group that shake off the traditional Irish awkwardness by asking everyone…

  • The Altered Hours w/ Documenta @ Menagerie, Belfast

    April 6, 2018 - By 

    The Menagerie has really gone from strength to strength since reopening late last year. The galaxy print exterior may have been replaced by a more austere matt black emulsion and the management may even have decided to indulge patrons with something as frivolously bourgeois as a mirror in the gents but the soul of the bar and its reputation as Belfast’s consummate coven of alternative spirit remain wholly intact. Tonight’s appearance by Belfast’s sprawling drone pop ensemble Documenta and Cork based rockers Altered Hours gives the thunderous new PA system ample opportunity to shine, proving once again that the Menagerie…

  • Wild Beasts @ Olympia Theatre, Dublin

    February 18, 2018 - By 

    This is the end of the indie technocrats. Nearly a decade after the release of Limbo, Panto Wild Beasts graced the Olympia stage for the last time. While this signals a very real end for the Kendal four-piece, it also serves as a more abstract end for an era of indie as a whole. Everywhere you look, mid-noughties bands are calling it a day. The age of four blokes and a guitar is over. But then, Wild Beasts never subscribed to this image of the scene. Their music was meant as the antithesis of the cheap lager and a pack…

  • Jeff Tweedy @ Vicar Street, Dublin

    February 6, 2018 - By 

    ‘I need to feel uncomfortable’ explains Jeff Tweedy, when asked about his long hair. He hasn’t cut it since the 2016 election he says, and hates it. At the beginning of a year-long hiatus for Wilco, the very same reasoning could be applied to his decision to embark on this short solo acoustic tour across the UK and Ireland. Bookended by ‘Via Chicago’ and ‘Shot In The Arm’ from 1998’s sugar-coated bitter-suite Summerteeth, tonight’s setlist criss-crosses Tweedy’s back catalogue from Uncle Tupelo to recent Wilco release Schmilco, with some surprising omissions along the way. There’s nothing from 2014’s solo/family affair…

  • Mark Lanegan @ Mandela Hall, Belfast

    December 7, 2017 - By 

    Upon its release back in April, Mark Lanegan’s tenth studio album, Gargoyle, not only strongly reiterated his contemporary relevance but also further revealed the multiplicity of artist who – just like his good friend in Joshua Homme – has zero intention of roaming the trodden sonic path ad infinitum. His return to Belfast’s Mandela Hall after five years tonight only serves to confirm that fact tenfold. Following two strong sets from Joe Cardamone and long-standing blues rock co-conspirator Duke Garwood, Lanegan – visible limp notwithstanding – tails his three-piece band on to stage tonight with zero fanfare. Bursting into ‘Death’s Head…

  • Rocket From The Crypt @ Whelan’s, Dublin

    December 5, 2017 - By 

    When San Diego’s finest purveyors of rock’n’roll Rocket from the Crypt decided to down tools near the tail end of 2005, it came as quite a shock to their devoted fan base. Yes, there were several interlinked side projects the various members continued on with, but none drew you into the same extent. Luckily after a one-off get together six years later involving a kids T.V. show, John ‘Speedo’ Reis decided to reignite his charges on a fulltime basis circa 2013, and they’ve been tearing stages across the world a new one ever since. However, before the headliners arrived, their…

  • Wolf Alice w/ Sunflower Bean @ Olympia Theatre, Dublin

    November 30, 2017 - By 

    Part of the appeal of Wolf Alice is how cool they have made not fitting in look. They’re always goofing off on Instagram, referring to themselves as a group of weirdos more than a band. Even as a collective they feel very different. Ellie Rowsell looks like the cool girl at a party that you’ll never talk to; bassist Theo Ellis an east-end gangster fully kitted out in suit and chains; Joff Oddie the nerdy musician who may well be Chris Martin from another life and Joel Amey, the throwback 70s drummer equipped with Cuban heels and a sequenced kit.…