• The Pet Shop Boys at SSE Arena, Belfast

    June 14, 2024 - By 

    I’m no stranger to finding myself in situations that make me question my life choices but sitting in the SSE Arena watching Dave Pearce play Dance Anthems and telling me to lift my arms in the air is a new one. I’ll admit I’d been surprised and sceptical on finding this was the support for the Pet Shop Boys’ Dreamland: The Greatest Hits Tour. I’m immediately proven wrong in my incredulity, however, by the middle-aged Kevin and Perry beside me, who are already joyously immersed in Faithless’s ‘Insomnia’ as I arrive, fisherman’s hats perched on their heads. Pet Shop Boys…

  • Gary Numan at Limelight 1, Belfast

    May 22, 2024 - By 

    It’s almost 45 years to the day since Gary Numan appeared with Tubeway Army in one of the all-time memorable Old Grey Whistle Test performances, promoting the then-new album Replicas. The band, led by some shamanic, androgynous alien cyborg, felt like a transmission of Ziggy Stardust & the Spiders as imagined by William Gibson or Philip K. Dick. A totem for the lost and alienated, his words sought out glimpses of humanity and connection in the darkest corners of a dystopia caused by the excesses of technology, and this was reflected in the music, a literal post-punk antithesis to the…

  • Pulp at St. Annes Park, Dublin

    June 13, 2023 - By 

    Is this the way they say the future’s meant to feel? Or just 20,000 people standing in a field? Well, it was both on Friday night as, nearly thirty years after the practically perfect Different Class was released, that future became the present for the thousands of people in St Anne’s Park in Dublin. And this time round we really understood what the feeling was – utter joy that Jarvis Cocker hasn’t changed at all and Pulp with their ‘This is What We Do for an Encore’ tour, delivered exactly what we wanted. Full of promise from the minute it’s…

  • Review: ABBA Voyage – “It has changed live music and performance forever”

    September 1, 2022 - By 

    Belfast-based Abba stan Shauna McLaughlin makes the pilgrimage to London to review the dazzling and groundbreaking virtual concert Traditionally reviews are written the day after the event. That didn’t happen with this review of ABBA Voyage because that day was spent hanging around outside the Arena in the hope of getting tickets to see it again immediately. Which is an impressive review in itself. The other point I want to make is that you’re better going in knowing nothing about what to expect. I may as well just stop writing here really. ABBA’s virtual concert residency, running since May 2022, with seven…

  • Parquet Courts at The Helix, Dublin

    June 14, 2022 - By 

    As the stage crew carry out the last of their tasks, the countdown to Parquet Courts’ arrival draws imminently closer. The stage of Dublin’s Helix is bathed in a low red hue, which gives off more of a dance club aesthetic to proceedings, as opposed to the fact it is about to host one of Brooklyn’s foremost indie bands. With the crowd beginning to gather, the club vibe is emphasised even further as the sounds of Todd Terje’s take on M’s ‘Pop Muzik’, and a remix of Timmy Thomas’ 1970s’ song ‘Why Can’t We Live Together’, pulsate from the PA.…

  • Arborist at First Presbyterian Church, Belfast

    May 2, 2022 - By 

    On any day, Belfast First Presbyterian Church offers a quite spectacular setting for a concert. It’s even more so the case when the event organiser, namely Arthur Magee, decides to use the Cathedral Quarter Arts Festival to honor the memory of former parishioner Thomas McCabe, who opposed the formation of the Belfast Slave Ship Company in 1786. In lieu of the usual opening band, the audience was offered an excerpt of the forthcoming play Sugar! by actor/writer Cillian Lenaghan. In his play, Lenaghan imagines Thomas McCabe’s visit to his church on the day after he prevented the formation of the…

  • Mitski at Vicar Street, Dublin

    April 27, 2022 - By 

    A large white wooden door hangs in the centre of the stage. Five musicians dressed in black step into position. Mitski begins to sing a capella, her haunting vocals emanating from the wings while her band members take the stage. She appears dressed in long, white flowing garments. Immediately, the crowd are in awe. Beginning with ‘Love Me More’ and ‘Should Have Been Me,’ she circles the stage, frantically, as if searching for a lost lover. Airy organs float above a wall of sound, as a tight rhythm section cuts through layers of keys and synths. She races in a…

  • HousePlants at Cyprus Avenue, Cork

    April 5, 2022 - By 

    The brainchild of electronic music wunderkind Daithí and Irish rock veteran Paul Noonan of Bell X1, HousePlants formed during lockdown and, through back and forth emails and messages, quickly started knocking out tunes. Their debut album Dry Goods is full of songs I couldn’t wait to see live while being churned around in a sweaty crowd at 2am at some backwoods music festival. So I was somewhat surprised by the relaxed atmosphere in Cyprus Avenue just before the main act took to the stage. Did the good people of Cork not know that there was dancing to be had tonight?…

  • Damien Jurado w/ Dana Gavanski @ Ulster Sports Club, Belfast

    March 2, 2020 - By 

    It takes a great deal of skill or charm – or a combination of the two – to silence a room. And yet this evening Belfast, so often plagued by inconsiderate gig-talkers, sees this filled-to-capacity venue fall under the thrall of a reverend quiet for both support act and main draw and remains submerged in that snow for the entire duration of the gig. It is a wonderfully unnerving experience to be somewhere so hushed that you can hear the person next to you breathing or respectfully supping at their pint but it is testament to not only the calibre…

  • Richard Dawson @ Empire Music Hall, Belfast

    February 26, 2020 - By 

    After recuperating from crossing freezing Scandinavia and France, Richard Dawson ended his rest period by performing in Belfast for the first time since his appearance at the Black Box in 2017. This time the setting was the Empire, a venue with music hall origins befitting Dawson, a performer who folds together the antique and the modern. His ability to draw such a sizeable crowd is an encouraging sign for any lovers of folk music, particularly because his style is at the less accessible end of the spectrum. Along with Dublin’s Lankum, another abrasive, brilliant group, Dawson’s recent work has done…