Imagine you’re in your college canteen and legendary Detroit techno collective Underground Resistance are having coffee at the next table. After skulling your cuppa you rush to lectures past electronic composer Dorian Concept on the […]
Category: Live reviews
Everything ship-shape: DGTL festival in Amsterdam
It’s still not warm enough to ditch your jacket and the sky is a hundred shades of grey, but we’re waiting on a ferry at the back of Amsterdam Centraal station – festival season is […]
Everything under the Sun: Solar Weekend in Roermond
IF YOU walk up to the entrance of a festival and you’re greeted by Rapunzel in a purple castle, you get the feeling you’ll be letting your own hair down for a few days. Rapunzel’s […]
Hell of a Night: Schoolboy Q in Dublin
It’s a bit redundant to go on about a gangsta rapper’s chest-beating, but Schoolboy Q does seem fairly sure of himself. He’s already scored a few points with the old Dublin jersey trick, and it’s not long […]
Metal Face-off: DOOM in Dublin
Doom is rap’s most enigmatic character – a cult comic book supervillain whose alter-egos include a powerful sorcerer, genius inventor and a three-headed space monster. It’s funny then to see Metal Face casually ambling onto […]
More man than machine: Icebreaker presents Kraftwerk, A Future Past – Dublin
Kraftwerk’s self-curated brand is one of the most rigid in modern music, and the iconic image of Man Machine automatons is crystallised in the current live show — pristine electronic pulses honed with nano scale […]
Detroit rap city: Danny Brown in Dublin
Danny Brown’s got one foot on the monitor in the Academy, headbanging, lurching forward and pulling out the devil horns, egged on by the swirling mosh pit and flying ping-pong plastic pints. It wouldn’t look […]
Millions and millions of stars in your eyes: Swans in Manchester
Swans’ leader Michael Gira once said the band’s mission is to fuck your insides, in “that deep sex death place in your stomach”. The band’s live reputation is a mix of urban myth and early-80s […]
Kamerad, komm tanz mit mir: Laibach in Berghain, Berlin
I’m a stone’s throw from the Berlin Wall and a blood-soaked axe-swastika is spinning behind five silhouettes in strobe-lit slow motion, grinding out 10 factories’ worth of industrial clatter. The screen lingers on deepthroat blowjobs, […]
This shit is… fuckin ridiculous: Kanye West and Jay-Z in Dublin
This shit is… fuckin’ ridiculous. Kanye’s own lyric could be a one-line review of his Watch the Throne live show with Jay-Z, a 40-song epic that cashes in all your craic tokens at once. It’s […]
Still Up With People: Lambchop in Dublin
For a troupe who once claimed to be “Nashville’s most fucked up band”, Lambchop know how to sprinkle some zen-like calm over a room. It’s Saturday night and the hens and stags are piggy-backing around […]
Bullshit Boring Drone Band? Emeralds in Dublin
State has been giving Emeralds the runaround for the last few months. For starters, the Icelandic volcano farted ash clouds all over their planned Whelan’s show last May. We then missed them at Primavera a […]
Kill ’em all: Odd Future live in Dublin
This midweek gig sure does feel like a school night – if you couldn’t find a ticket for the sold-out show on toutless.ie, you could’ve just haggled with all the under-age Odd Future fans who couldn’t […]
Eye of the Storm: Neurosis live in Dublin
You know that bullshit about Eskimos having 100 different words for snow? You’d need more than 100 ‘heavy’ synonyms to get to the black heart of a Neurosis gig. Thesaurus.com won’t cut it. ‘Filth’ needs a […]
Forming like Voltron: Wu-Tang Clan live in Dublin
Strange things are happening in Tripod – it’s 9.30pm and it looks like the Wu-Tang Clan might arrive on time. OK, so it’s been billed as “9pm sharp”, but this is as close as you’ll […]
