Irish gigs round-up

PUSSY RIOT, Button Factory, Dublin, Thursday.
It’s impossible to simply focus on the music of Russian feminist punk collective Pussy Riot, and try to ignore the infamous scandal of three members arrested in 2012 after performing in a church — a protest against the Orthodox Church’s support of Vladimir Putin.

Their music is a ramshackle mix of dub, punk and spoken word sloganeering, with an even more primitive sound than The Slits.

A million bonus points for their Trump smackdown Make America Great Again, with its hashtag #thepussygrabsback. And they’ll at least have good T-shirts.

COLUMBIA MILLS, Button Factory, Dublin, tonight
Columbia Mills have just released one of the late-stage Irish albums of the year, their debut A Safe Distance To Watch.

The album builds on their previous EPs — melancholy shoegaze and electronica with a nod to Joy Division, the Cure and Jesus and Mary Chain.

The Wicklow act have been sitting on the album for a year after recording in 2016 — but after a summer of festival hype they’re finally launching it tonight, in their biggest gig yet.

NELLY, Vicar Street, Dublin, Monday & Ulster Hall, Belfast, Tuesday
According to one review of Nelly’s Dublin show last year, there were plenty of sweaty bodies and bras flying round.

For an artist whose biggest hit is called Hot In Herre, at least he seems to be filling his brief, long after his early 2000s chart glory days have sailed by.

The Texas rapper and R&B star has seven albums, with none of his later records reaching the levels of chart and student disco domination as Nellyville and Country Grammar, so the likes of Hot In Herre, Work It, Ride Wit Me and Batter Up will be doing all the heavy lifting here.

WOLF ALICE, Ulster Hall, Belfast, Monday; Olympia Theatre, Dublin, Tuesday.
Bands like Wolf Alice mean 90s alt-rock groups have to work a lot harder on their comeback tours, or their fans will be stolen in the meantime.

The Londoners have just released their second album Visions of a Life, adding psychedelic shimmers to the grunge and shoegaze on their debut My Love Is Cool.