• Depeche Mode @ 3Arena, Dublin

    November 17, 2017 - By 

    Rapidly approaching 40 years in the music industry, Depeche Mode are bang in the middle of touring in support of their latest album Spirit, which marks them making synth pop music since they were teenagers to darkwave industrial titans and all the highs, lows and near death experiences in between, including recently having the misfortune of being declared “the official band of the alt-right” by all round awful arsehuman Richard Spencer (reach out, punch face) . The incomparable Dave Gahan struts down the long runway to the right of the stage with his limbs heaving and head poised like a…

  • Lisa Hannigan @ The Duncairn, Belfast

    November 6, 2017 - By 

    Lisa Hannigan and her band have just edged into the first verse of their fifth song at Belfast’s Duncairn Centre for Culture & Arts. I’ve quickly nipped to the bathroom, where I overhear this brief tête-à-tête between two gentlemen: “Some gig, isn’t it?” “I’ve only just arrived. Stuck in traffic.” “Oh, Jesus.” As I leap up the stairwell back into the venue space, it suddenly hits me: the “Oh, Jesus” immediately (and very tellingly) severed the exchange between the two strangers. When it comes to a Lisa Hannigan show, it really is in your best interests to be present from the very first note…

  • St. Vincent @ Olympia Theatre, Dublin

    October 23, 2017 - By 

    We heard it here first. St. Vincent is 80% Irish. She tells us this in a rare glimpse into a personal moment, the stage persona briefly dropped to let the audience in. So, here we all are in the middle of a meticulously constructed piece of musical theatre, and Annie Clark is talking about the first two Irish potato famines. Not even the Great Famine – the rockstar famine – but the first two. “It was always family lore that we were Irish” she smiles, and cynicism be damned, it’s actually believable when she claims Irish crowds are her favourite.…

  • Joshua Burnside w/ Ports & Little Rivers @ Studio2, Liverpool

    October 6, 2017 - By 

    Liverpool’s Studio2 is an odd sort of a place. It’s on the backstreet of a backstreet, far away from Concert Square, the main strip and the horror of the bottled Beatles, 80s bars and fake paddywhackery of Matthew St. For the non-scousers among you, don’t Google Concert Square – it’s not what you think it is. In fact, if you ever get to Liverpool avoid the place like the bloody plague. And yet here we are, among the carparks, mechanics and those kinds of places that can just afford the rent around here. This little oasis in the middle of…

  • Grizzly Bear w/ Liima @ Vicar Street, Dublin

    October 6, 2017 - By 

    Kicking off the first of a two night stay in Dublin’s Vicar Street, New York indie rockers Grizzly Bear have returned to Irish shores to promote their fantastic new album Painted Ruins. Whilst the band have preceded their show with lots of social media insights into their night before in Whelan’s checking out The Drums, we have a while to wait before they bless us with their presence. As the anticipation builds, Liima (below)perform a support slot of their brand of heavily electronict-inged indie. The Scandinavians’ set is full of energy and they’re an obvious support for Grizzly Bear with…

  • Eh Joe @ Samuel Beckett Happy Days Festival

    September 7, 2017 - By 

    One of the most satisfying aspects of the Happy Days Enniskillen International Beckett Festival has been its embrace of Beckett in all his diversity – from his emblematic plays to short dramatic works, poetry, and performances written specifically for radio and television. Eh Joe, Beckett’s first play for television, was written for Jack MacGowaran in 1965, though the version on the big screen in Enniskillen’s Ardhowen Theatre comes from a 1986 adaptation by Director Alan Gilsenan, starring Tom Hickey and Siobhan McKenna (as the Woman’s voice). The stark opening scene sees Joe, a middle-aged man in worn, soiled clothes, sat…

  • Máirtín O’Connor, Cathal Hayden, Garry O’Briain & ConTempo Quartet @ The Ulster Museum

    September 6, 2017 - By 

    The metaphoric symbolism of traditional musicians performing inside a museum wasn’t lost on button accordionist Máirtín O’Connor, fiddler Cathal Hayden and bouzouki player Garry O’Briain. “Someone will put a friggin’ glass case over us – fossils of folk,” quips O’Connor, the former De Danana and Boys of the Lough alumnus, to much laughter. “We’ll sit here for the rest of our days.” In such an unlikely event, the Ulster Museum would be exhibiting the wrong musicians, for despite deep roots in Irish folk music, O’Connor, Hayden and O’Briain have, over the course of forty plus years, embraced all manner of…

  • Holly Macve w/ Alana Henderson @ Studio 1A, Bangor

    August 23, 2017 - By 

    Far beyond providing mere entertainment, a festival has the capacity to animate everyday spaces and nudge people to perhaps see their habitual surroundings in a new light. Now in its fifth year, Open House Festival has brought Bangor’s spaces – small and large, public and private, mundane and magical – to life, via the arts in their broadest possible spectrum. The transformative nature of Open House Festival is evident in the concert of Holly Macve, the first concert held in the century-long history of the former The Good Templar Hall, re-baptized Studio 1A in April 2017, after extensive renovations and…

  • Aislinn Logan w/ Mark Loughrey @ Town Square, Belfast

    August 1, 2017 - By 

    Playing a stripped-back show in a limited capacity space on what is payday for some (presumably very thirsty) people is often a recipe for disaster. Usually it’s nothing personal: you could be Paul Simon or Joni Mitchell playing a pop-up show to a room full of dyed-in-the-wool aficionados and yet – due to some strange phenomenon that has somewhat corrupted live performance in public spaces since the dawn of time – people will often put loudly catching up above bearing witness to the artist they’ve parted money to be in the company of. Like, say, the Nazca Geoglyphs, the Bermuda Triangle and the…

  • Two Door Cinema Club @ Trinity College, Dublin

    July 12, 2017 - By 

    Making their last Irish appearance under the alias “Tudor Cinema club” in 2016, Northern Irish Two Door Cinema Club make their way to Trinity College in Dublin brandishing new material in the form of their latest album Gameshow, an eccentric stab at both new and old audiences that didn’t quite hit the mark for either. As such, it comes as no surprise that there is a definite expectation in the air for the group to rely on their debut Tourist History rather than force feed the crowd their latest venture. Starting off the night are support act Circa Waves, an…