Irish gigs of the week

GHOSTPOET, The Button Factory, Dublin, Tuesday, €16
Ghostpoet’s fourth album Dark Days and Canapes is the bleakest yet from the poet, rapper, singer, beatmaker and producer, but his acclaimed live show will be no less intense.

The Coventry MC’s first few releases were steeped in glitchy electronica but on Dark Days he explores a shattered version of trip-hop, with frail piano and guitar over rhymes wracked with anxiety about the absolute state of the world right now.

JAKE CLEMONS, Roisin Dubh, Galway, tomorrow, €16
For a sax player, Jake Clemons has arguably the greatest day job in rock’n’roll — as the newest fully paid-up member of Bruce Springsteen’s E Street Band, after filling in for his uncle Clarence, who sadly passed in 2010.

But Jake doesn’t only tour in his iconic uncle’s giant shadow — he’s played with Eddie Vedder, the Roots and Swell Season and he released his debut album Fear & Love this year.

There aren’t many big surprises on the album — bluesy rock’n’roll and a rich voice that could spin a thousand yarns.

OMD, Vicar Street, Dublin, Monday, €40; Mandela Hall, Belfast, Tuesday, £35
It’s nearly 40 years since OMD released their first rudimentary electro single Electricity and 30 years since their first best-of, but the synthpop veterans are still staying off the nostalgia trail.

The Liverpool group’s new album The Punishment of Luxury is a late career highlight — all Kraftwerkian sleek synth lines and vocoders, and classic electro titles like Robot Man and Isotype.

As well as the quality new material, their setlist is stacked with decades of electro-pop hits — Enola Gay, Messages, Secret and Souvenir for starters.

BLACK REBEL MOTORCYCLE CLUB, The Academy, Dublin, Monday, SOLD OUT; The Limelight, Belfast, Tuesday, £22.50
It’s well over a decade since Black Rebel Motorcycle Club could bother the charts or get the big slots on festival posters, but they’ve still got a devoted fan base who can sell out gigs all over.

Their big noughties hits like Whatever Happened To My Rock’n’Roll and Spread Your Love may have been diluted by TV ads and football montages, but they’ve been plugging away since with their snarly, skuzzy psychedelic rock’n’roll.

The San Franciscans are returning early next year with their eighth album Wrong Creatures, and new track Little Thing Gone Wild is a garage rock racket that’ll please old-school fans.

CHIC WITH NILE RODGERS, 3Arena, Dublin, Wednesday, €69.50-79.50
Nile Rodgers is proof that some performers in Ireland are impervious to overkill fatigue. He’s brought the Chic circus over here countless times, to theatres, summer festivals, winter festivals and outdoor gigs.

If you go for a pint to your local later, Nile might be playing Le Freak in the corner.

You can’t argue with decades of hits though — from Chic classics like Everybody Dance and Good Times, alongside the chart belters he wrote for Bowie, Diana Ross, Madonna, Duran Duran and Sister Sledge.

Rodgers has been promising a new Chic album for years, but till then you’ll have to make do with these pop standards.