BORIS… Limelight 2, Belfast, Wednesday
Experimental metal band Boris are one of Japan’s most famous avant-garde exports, with over 40 releases since 1996, ranging from heavy psychedelia to doom metal and noise.
Their underground credentials are boosted even more over the collaborations with Merzbow, Keiji Haino and Sunn O))).
They’re in Ireland supporting their new album Dear, but expect a trawl through the deepest recesses of their back catalogue. Earplugs mandatory.
GROOVE FESTIVAL… Kilruddery House, Bray, tomorrow-Sunday
How times have changed when one of the UK’s most notorious hellraising bands, Primal Scream are headlining a “two-day summer festival of music, wellness and family fun”.
Just weeks after headlining Sea Sessions in Bundoran, Bobby Gillespie and co are topping off the first night of the Bray weekender tomorrow.
On Sunday, it’s pop-reggae veterans UB40 playing some of the most loved chart hits of the last 30 years, including Red Red Wine, Rat In My Kitchen and Kingston Town.
There’s also a rare appearance from folk-rock legends Hothouse flowers, and other notable younger acts are Daithi, Columbia Mills, Fara Elle, Katie Laffan and I Am Niamh.
KASABIAN, Custom House Square, Belfast, Tuesday
The award for the most random ‘festival’ this year is CHSq in Belfast, which feels like organisers just threw nine darts at a wall blindfolded and went with the results.
Over two weeks in August at Custom House Square it ranges from Irish indie-pop (Walking on Cars), local punks (Stiff Little Fingers), EDM (Timmy Trumpet, Above & Beyond) and indie hangers-on (Ocean Colour Scene). It finishes off Sunday week with techno legend Carl Cox.
On Tuesday it’s Kasabian, who’ve been exclusively on a summer festival tour for three months, so expect them to be ruthlessly efficient — playing those dumbed-down chant choruses, the perfect soundtrack to going spilling beer round yourself.
MUSE + BIFFY CLYRO… Boucher Playing Fields, Belfast, Wednesday
Here’s a blockbuster double headliner for a school night, as Boucher Playing Fields hosts another Tennant’s Vital outdoor bash.
There’ll be no such thing as any subtlety or lightness of touch, as Muse take their histrionic prog rock theatrics to South Belfast.
They’re joined by Scottish alt-rock stars Biffy Clyro, along with support from English indie-rock act Nothing But Thieves, and Dublin grungers Fangclub, who recently supported Pixies, so it’s another bullseye for them.
The Psychedelic Furs, The Limelight, Belfast, Wednesday; The Academy, Dublin, Thursday
New wave veterans Psychedelic Furs haven’t released an album in 26 years but for these nostalgia shows that’s really an advantage — no scarpering for a pint during the ‘new one’.
Neutrals will know the hit Pretty In Pink that was used in the classic 1986 John Hughes movie, but there’s plenty more swaggering new wave cult classics where that came from — Heartbreak Beat, The Ghost In You and President Gas for starters.
Moo Kid 