• Enemies Final Show @ Vicar Street, Dublin

    December 20, 2016 - By 

    For Enemies’ final show to land at this stage of an already turbulent year for Irish independent music felt significant. Throughout the course of a Sunday night in Vicar Street there was a sense of one era’s gradual end and another’s step further to the fore permeating the venue. Looking back on a year that saw more than a fair share of independent acts bow out gracefully from the scene, to have this gig as somewhat of a bookend for that felt meaningful. It re-instilled the importance for a band or artist to always act on their own terms, to…

  • Meltybrains? @ The Academy, Dublin

    November 28, 2016 - By 

    The underappreciation of musicians and bands is a hot topic at the moment. The fact that creative output is criminally undervalued isn’t news but it seems that, here in Dublin at least, we’ve reached a moment. The fact that bands are openly citing financial and commercial difficulties as a reason for stop doing what they love should be a harrowing distant possibility rather than the hard truth that it is. Yet, as a fan, as a gig goer it’s often hard to keep in focus just how thankless the “job” can be. Just look at Zaska’s well deserved successful fund…

  • Dinosaur Jr @ Vicar Street, Dublin

    November 21, 2016 - By 

    Not least since their much-heralded 2005 reunion, Dinosaur Jr shows have always been something of a foregone conclusion in that the following facts will almost always hold sway throughout: it will be “should-really-have-brought-earplugs” loud; the band probably won’t verbally interact with each other and – perhaps most assured of all – those who kneel at the altar of J Mascis will spend the entire mass show gawking at the frontman, agog, often open-mouthed and expectant of the next face-melting solo. Having had its doors darkened by many a revered figure this year, Dublin’s Vicar Street is no exception to that trifecta tonight.…

  • Football As Never Before @ The Strand Arts Centre, Belfast

    November 8, 2016 - By 

    A ninety-minute avant garde documentary about George Best, set to live music and performed in an art deco cinema, might sound like something from the 1970s alternative arts scene, particularly when only one of the footballing superstar’s goals is featured.  But this is Belfast in 2016 and the catalyst for this future-retro Best tribute is Dublin composer/musician Matthew Nolan, who specializes in putting music to silent/avant-garde films. The film in question is “Football Like Never Before”, shot by German film-maker Helmuth Costard in 1970 and released the following year. Eight 16mm cameras tracked Best for the full ninety minutes of…

  • John Carpenter @ Vicar Street, Dublin

    October 25, 2016 - By 

    Not entirely unlike that scene in Wayne’s World where Wayne and Garth declare themselves all but contemptible in the presence of Alice Cooper, the sense of collective unworthiness when John Carpenter quite literally struts out on stage with his band in Vicar Street tonight is tangible. Hands down one of cinema’s greatest auteurs – a fiercely single-minded master of both sound and vision – the 68-year-old has accumulated very few naysayers over his genre-spanning, critic-slaying, five-decade career to date, a fact that is comfortably underlined by the idolatrous energy in the much-loved Dublin venue tonight. But from those first ominous ripples of the main title to his 1981 dystopian classic Escape…

  • Beat Root: Chris Wood & Trembling Bells

    September 17, 2016 - By 

    The contrast between the caustic avant-rock of Metá Metá and the acoustic, traditional folk that opened day three of Beat Root could not have been starker. Fiddlers Conor Caldwell and Danny Diamond have been playing together since their teens, though their professional collaboration as a duo is relatively recent. The duo presents material from its album, North (Claddagh Records, 2016), a reimagining of traditional tunes, beginning with the bouyant number ‘The Further in the Deeper’ by Donegal fiddle legend John Doherty, with the duo swapping the melody and rhythmic roles back and forth. A set of reels, ‘Drunken Wagn’er/’Over the…

  • Beat Root: Caoimhín Ó Raghallaigh & Metá Metá

    September 14, 2016 - By 

    Back for its second year, Beat Root, Moving On Music’s festival of roots music, offered a program as diverse as imaginable, from harps, fiddles and thundering rock to singer-songwriter mastery and psychedelic folk.  Traditions, and the bending of them, were the constant dualities at play across four evenings of uplifting music, that taken together, amounted to one of Belfast’s best music festivals of the year to date. Though often associated with formal recitals, the harp can be one of the most expressive and one of the most thrilling of instruments – just think of Colombian Edmar Castaneda or Shetland islander Catriona…

  • Sestina @ Clonard Monastery, Belfast

    September 5, 2016 - By 

    The men of Sestina, Northern Ireland’s unique early ensemble are striding out on their own tonight, leaving the women, for now, in the wings. For this gender imbalance you can point an accusing finger, into the distant past, at various Papal decrees that forbade women singers in the church.Not good news for aspiring female singers of the time, though we should perhaps spare a thought for the promising young male altos, who were castrated in order to preserve their angelic voices. Today, happily enough, Sestina relies on natural talent as opposed to radical surgical manipulation for results. This concert, in the magnificent…

  • Altan w/ Kern @ Feile An Droichead

    September 9, 2016 - By 

    It’s undoubtedly something of a coup for Feile An Droichead to have persuaded Altan to play at An Droichead, a much smaller venue than is customary for the legendary group. Few trad outfits can boast the sustained activity and international appeal of Altan, who have been thrilling audiences around the world for three decades. The band will be celebrating its 30th anniversary in 2017, but in truth, an Altan concert at any time is a celebratory event and tonight is no different. First up, however, is Kern. The Louth trio has been together for nearly three years and its dashing…

  • Electric Picnic 2016

    September 7, 2016 - By 

    The Holy Grail of Irish music and the summer season is back again with the fastest selling ever Electric Picnic gracing Stradbally in its typically flamboyant style. Despite the speed with which tickets sold out, murmurs of disappointment have been rife all summer due to Picnic’s decision to pull the lineup back slightly from the massive names of the last few years in favour of a roll call of bands that would have been standard in the earlier years of the festival. This change is evident immediately due to the slightly older crowd strolling around on Friday afternoon pitching up…