Andy Stott at The Twisted Pepper, Dublin – 13th April 2013 Howling wind slamming into a tatty Dublin Bus. The sound of the tyres roaring into action, weighed down by the volume of bodies heading in to a Saturday night in the dreary city. It’s all happening around us, and could well be the warm-up act for Resident Advisor’s headliner [...]

The Saw Doctors may have put Tuam on the musical map, but foursome Strange Boats are just one of the emerging acts cutting their teeth on the Galway town’s circuit. Having just formed last year—their debut EP is a bit too obvious about it. ‘Nice to Be Alone’ is a three-track EP consisting of painfully alternative arrangements that are a [...]

Carrie Underwood at The Olympia Theatre, Dublin – 14th March 2013 She sang I Can’t Make You Love Me and clucked like a chicken almost ten years ago on American Idol. Turns out, she could make people love her, dominating the voting every week on the competition and eventually winning by a landslide. She’s come a long way since, to [...]

Hudson Taylor at the Academy 2 on the 21st December, 2012. While it may take some bands half-a-decade or so to truly ‘make it’ past the pub circuit, Hudson Taylor are one of those whose stats just keep going up on the line-chart. Having formed around this time last year, the band take to the stage in the Academy 2 [...]

Electronic records are a lot like cab drivers. It often seems as though there are too many, delivering too little quality. But just as this driver spells his name with a K, the quality also pops. Kab Driver is an alias of Belfast-based producer and co-founder of RESET label and club night, David Baxter. In his first self-titled release, he [...]

Katherine Jenkins at The O2 on the 15th of December 2012 Releasing a Christmas album is all the rage now—just ask Bieber, Rod Stewart, or the King of Christmas, Michael Buble. It seems there’s a vacancy for the queen—a crown Katherine Jenkins is clawing at. She released ‘This Is Christmas’ in October, a collection of classic carols and hymns sung [...]

The early 90s—full of bad jeans, neon shirts, grunge denim and great musical movements. One of these was ‘college rock’, of which brought to the podium alt-prom king and queen, Evan Dando and Juliana Hatfield. Tonight, they’re descending on the Sugar Club for a class reunion. Meeting at an early age, Dando found fame with the Lemonheads, spawning some of [...]

Not much prepares you for Allen Stone‘s voice. Not his appearance, for sure. With the long wavy blonde hair of a Californian surfer, thick glasses and a fedora-like hat—the guy’s a hippie. But not just any old hippie, a self-proclaimed “hippie with soul”. Tonight, he’s softening up the Sugar Club, the perfect venue to sit back and enjoy Stone’s dulcet [...]

Jens Lekman at Whelans, Dublin, 22nd of November 2012 It’s Jens Lekman’s second time playing Dublin—that he can remember, anyway. Tonight, the venue is Whelans, his favourite, considering it’s the only one he’s played. Someone shouts out another, “I don’t remember it”, he dismisses, like the idea he was ever here performing against his knowledge is entirely plausible. The format [...]

Enileven have made a commendable attempt at phonetically spelling the Dublin to Wexford national road. While the contentious would argue that it‘s simply n-eleven, we don‘t deduct marks for spelling. The Dublin four-piece released their first EP, ‘Every Day’s a Revolution’ during the summer, having recorded earlier this year at Temple Lane Studios. There’s nothing revolutionary about ‘Every Day’s a [...]