• 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…

  • All Tvvins @ Olympia Theatre, Dublin

    November 1, 2016 - By 

    “It’s good to be home” says Conor Adams, frontman of All Tvvins after playing their first song in The Olympia Theatre tonight, Book. And it seems that the feeling is mutual, the crowd could not be happier to have the band back on home turf after they have been away touring across Europe in support of their debut album ‘IIVV’ for the last while. In tonight’s show All Tvvins show just why there has been so much talk about them, and this definitely feels like the beginning of something huge. From the moment they take to the stage they have…

  • Cate Le Bon @ Black Box, Belfast

    October 21, 2016 - By 

    Four albums in, Cate Le Bon is making her long overdue Belfast headlining debut with the rest of her band, having previously only been here for a solo set supporting Manic Street Preachers a few years ago. Her guest appearances on the works of fellow Welsh artists the Manics and Neon Neon have brought extra attention her way, but her solo career has been on a gradual rise on its own terms, and with this year’s impressive Crab Day making waves, it’s as good a time as any to make up for that absence. Le Bon’s music has undergone something…

  • Poliça @ The Button Factory, Dublin

    October 18, 2016 - By 

    It’s a much different atmosphere that greets Poliça as they take the stage at the Button Factory tonight. For one thing, this venue is considerably roomier than Whelan’s, the location of their last visit in March 2013. For another, they managed to avoid being messed up by the ferry journey. Battling nausea and general shakiness, they made the best of an unwanted situation. Tonight, however, they come out fighting. The band – Channy Leaneagh on vocals, Chris Bierden on bass & dual drummers Ben Ivascu and Drew Christopherson – are a force to be reckoned with on stage, and the increased…

  • Camino Na Sáile @ Ulster Museum, Belfast

    August 29, 2016 - By 

    “It’s important to do mad things. I don’t think it’s very wise not to do mad things.” So says Danny Sheehy, sagely. And what could be wiser than for a writer, an artist, a stonemason and two musicians to make a wooden-framed, canvas-covered boat and sail it, from Dublin, across a couple of seas, to join the route of the Camino de Santiago de Compostella? Sheehy is one of five wise men on the stage in the Ulster Museum, along with Glen Hansard, Brenden Begley, Brendan Ó Mhuircheartaigh and Liam Holden. Middle aged, weather beaten, grey haired, and with a…

  • Saul Williams @ Roisin Dubh, Galway

    July 4, 2016 - By 

    We’re very good at pretending nothing’s wrong. Rather, we’re excellent at grunting a few times about how shambolic everything is before sauntering to the bar and quickly changing the subject. Of course we are! We’ve become so resigned to the radical shitness of so much that goes on both far from home and right outside our doors that half the time we just sigh a little and tweet a GIF of a cat that somehow represents how doomed everything is. Sometimes though, we have a tendency to surprise ourselves with our potential. Every once in a while something gives us…

  • Mudhoney & Bog Log III @ Black Box, Belfast

    June 9, 2016 - By 

    It truly is silly season on the live circuit, and circumstance would have it that the same night grunge godfathers Mudhoney returned to Belfast would be when the granddaddy of them all, Neil Young, decided to play his first ever date in the city. Mudhoney have never been about huge arenas though: the demise of Mark Arm and Steve Turner’s previous act Green River came when he didn’t match the ambitions of the stadium hungry band mates Jeff Ament and Stone Gossard, and while the later dominated the 90s as the founders of Pearl Jam, Arm and co.’s Mudhoney provided…

  • Rusangano Family @ The Sugar Club, Dublin

    April 11, 2016 - By 

    There’s been something special brewing in Ireland for the last year or so. If you’ve been lucky you’ve caught glimpses of it here and there, or heard the rumours; something big from the Mid-West. Something new. But after nearly a full year of hor d’ouvres in the shape of feverish shows and tantalising single track releases one of Ireland’s most exciting bands finally has a full album to offer. And while it’s justifiably whipping critics and fans into a frenzy, many know that for the full Rusangano Family hip hop experience you’ve got to see it live. So while the…

  • Two Door Cinema Club @ Roisin Dubh, Galway

    April 10, 2016 - By 

    The last time I saw Two Door Cinema Club was at Oxegen 2011, at the peak of their remarkably fast climb to being the most hyped indie-pop band of the time… their drummer flung a drumstick into the crowd at the end and it hit me square in the eye. Aside from that painful memory however I do remember it being one of the most uplifting and downright fun gigs of the weekend. Still on the back of their spritely debut Tourist History and wildly successful singles ‘Undercover Martin’ and ‘What You Know’, the group of lads from Bangor seemed…

  • Battles w/ Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith @ The Button Factory, Dublin

    March 24, 2016 - By 

    The Button Factory plays host to the first night of Battles’ European Spring tour tonight, in support of their latest album La Di Da Di. Having sold out not too long after it was announced last year, the desire for the trio’s return to Dublin is immense. Tonight’s sole support, Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith takes to the stage first with an impressive array of synths, sequencers, connective wires and blinking lights, evocative of a young Delia Derbyshire at the BBC radiophonic workshop. She begins with a series of robotic loops, which advances into Laurie Anderson territory as she distorts her vocals through…