Stella at The Sugar Club on Friday, 17th October 2025.

Trying to tell someone what it is like to experience a performance by Stella is a tall order. Not because I have a limited vocabulary. Quite the contrary. I face the same challenge that most of her fans might have felt when trying to bring others into the fold. If you ask them to explain to someone new what Stella is all about, each person will likely have a different answer. Appropriately so.

Stella performed to a sold out audience at The Sugar Club on her first visit to Ireland, and when she said she loved it and that she wanted to come back, it did not feel like a platitude. It felt warm. It felt authentic.

That’s also the vibe that Stella gave from the minute she stepped on stage with her band. She projected warmth and her energy on stage had an infectious sense of joie de vivre. It is tough for me to classify Stella’s music and art into a particular genre. That’s a great thing from my perspective. Boxing someone into a few labels is helpful for us humans as we try to bring order, and classify the information that we get through our senses. However, not being able to attach Stella’s music to a particular genre or style compelled me to tune in further into what she was hoping to convey.

While Greek by birth, most of Stella’s songs are in English and touch upon universal themes of love, loss, and longing. Her audience at the Sugar Club was an eclectic one. We all started the concert sitting in our seats, or standing along the aisles on either side of the seating area. Within fifteen minutes of her set, the whole place had transformed into a party. People had chosen to step down near the stage, and from then on for the next hour it was a delightful celebration.

Here are five songs to get you started. I recommend these tracks knowing that I will listen to each of them intently, with delight, at least ten times. Titanic – a smooth melodic whistle sound book-ended the track while the clean guitars and a funky bass groove got me swaying. I am a lyrics person, and while I admit to being confounded by a string of names that Stella mentions in the lyrics, three syllables at a time – “Caroline Margaret Laure Mae Susan J John Borie Julius Frederick Mrs Kate”, that doesn’t deter me from letting this track be a much welcome ear worm.

Is It Over – a song that held me in sway, with a story of how something ended much sooner than one would’ve hoped or imagined. It is the opposite of a song of yearning, one of longing. “Fell out of love so fast, like a stone you throw.” Sometimes such ends can be a good thing. Especially if good songs emerge from it. I’m glad it was over. For the sake of art, of course.

80 Days – an acoustic-ish ballad-ish track with nylon string sounds, slowed things down for me. “Pretty faces that knock on your door, you send them away like you sent them before” – an encouragement to let go of the rules, and to live a little, to crash and burn, past the point of no return. An invite I’ll gladly sign up for.

Charmed – “Now you’re gone far away, far away. If you could, would you stay, would you stay with me?” This song speaks of a certain longing, and has a certain sense of pathos to it. And yet, when it was being played by Stella and her band, I was enjoying myself, because of how slick it all sounded when put together. Charmed is probably the first track you will hear if you chance upon her profile on a streaming site.

Omorfo Mou – this one was all Greek to me. No prizes for guessing why. And yet it turned out to be the song that I’d recommend the most. It is a song about suffering for love, of love taking an emotional toll and yet leaving you feeling like it is worth it. To me, this track reinforces how humans can potentially have eight billion plus unique definitions for what love is and for all that they’d do in the name of love.

The melody, the instrumental arrangements and the bass groove will draw you in even more, now that you know this song was written at a heavy price. This was also Stella’s second ever song written in Greek.

As someone who speaks a few languages with native proficiency, I can vouch for how certain concepts and ideas with strong cultural ties can only be felt and expressed lyrically with gravitas in their native language. Stella mentions this in an interview she gave, about how writing and singing in English feels lighter, because her connection to the words is less personal than it is in Greek.

If you’re a fan already, I hope you’ll share this review with others to help them discover a new genre-fluid artist that is so delightful to engage with. And like me, if you’re new, welcome. Stella’s music will keep you charmed long after it is over.