Vantastival 2013 | Gig of the Week

Festival season is finally here!! The confirmation of Electric Picnic last week may have tipped our excitment levels over the edge. So now it’s time to dust off the wellies, pop on your trilby and coordinate your sunglasses with your raincoat. It seems only right that Gig of the Week goes to Vantastival in Bellurgan Park, Co Louth. The family friendly festival has three stages and over 70 acts including Damien Dempsey, ASIWYFA, Jerry Fish, Altan, RSAG, Raglans, Rachel Sermanni & Elaine Mai to name but a few. Keeping true to its name there is also a focus of activities relating to campervan lifestyle. See the full stage time and line ups here. Tickets are still available with weekend tickets at €89.50, or €40 per day.

Elsewhere, it’s a busy old Monday. Those Colorado pop rockers OneRepublic will ease you into the week in The Olympia Theatre. Tickets are €24.50 and still available, you can even nab yourself one of those meet and greet packages, if you’re that way inclined. After a succesful stint supporting Ed Sheeran on his recent arena tour and one of the biggest singles of the year with ‘Let Her Go’, Passenger start their hat trick of sold out Vicar Street gigs. Meanwhile at the opposite end of the music chain, Whelans is sold out for experimental hip hop masters Death Grips.

The legends that are Dexys (those of midnight runners fame) take to The Olympia Theatre for a fully seated performance on Thursday. Limited tickets are still available and are €34.50.   Around the corner in The Workman’s club Californian alt rocker Chuck Prophet is in town for his first Dublin date in ten years. Tickets are still available and are €17.

The hottest ticket in town is for the hugely succesful Alt-J, who’s last Dublin gig saw them play The Academy 2. They’ve made the unsurprising leap to The Olympia Theatre, and you would have more of a chance of finding a guitar at this years Oxegen than finding a ticket for this one. It should be one hell of a show.  The Czars frontman John Grant is down in Vicar Street on Thursday too. Tickets are still available and are €23.

Camden Crawl is taking over almost every Dublin venue this weekend, kicking off with the launch in Whelans on Friday with Dirty Beaches, New Young Pony Club & Wingdings. Tickets for that gig are €20, but of course Goldenplec want to send you along for free, enter here. Over Saturday and Sunday 15 venues will see the likes of Echo & The Bunnymen, Holy Other, Dirty Beaches, Fight Like Apes, Heathers, Bantum and many many more. Tickets are still available with weekend tickets at  €59.50 or day tickets at €38.50.

On Sunday night, Adam Ant & The Good, The Mad & The Lovely Posse are in Vicar Street. It should be interesting following the release of his 2012 comeback LP ‘Adam Ant Is the Blueblack Hussar in Marrying the Gunner’s Daughter’. Not one for modest titles, it would seem. Tickets are still available and are €30.