Latest news with #GillaBand
Irish Times
08-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Irish Times
Gilla Band at In the Meadows review: Musical Marmite from Ireland's own Velvet Underground
Gilla Band In the Meadows, Royal Hospital Kilmainham, Dublin ★★★☆☆ A bulldozing onslaught of pure noise marks the start of Gilla Band's tumultuous set at the In the Meadows festival at Dublin's Royal Hospital Kilmainham . Fully justifying their reputation as one of the country's most uncompromising bands, their performance is a mix of short, sharp shocks and longer, bludgeoning interludes. It's like listening to the end of the world as relayed via the medium of early 1980s post-punk. Without being hyperbolic, there is a case that the group (who previously went as Girl Band) are a sort of Velvet Underground of 21st-century Irish indie music. They aren't stars in their own right, but their impact can be heard all over. Fontaines DC – off headlining Barcelona's Primavera Festival as Gilla Band take to the stage in Dublin – have named them as an influence. Idles Irish-born guitarist Mark Bowen has identified Gilla Band as one of the driving forces in the upsurge of new rock in Ireland in recent years. 'They made something that was completely new. When you listen to the first album, I don't think I've heard a band that sounds like this before,' he told The Irish Times in 2024. 'They've spawned the idea that you don't need to rely on UK or American culture to inform our culture.' READ MORE Such praise is worn lightly by Gilla Band, whose third album, Great Acclaim, was released in 2022 on London's Rough Trade – the label that championed The Smiths and, more recently, Mercury-nominated Irish trad band Lankum. Fans at Gilla Band's performance at the Royal Hospital, Kilmainham, Dublin. Photograph: Dara Mac Dónaill/The Irish Times Wearing a rumpled jacket and shirt, singer Dara Kiely looks like a civil servant who's arrived at the gig straight from back-to-back Zoom calls. His banter is limited to the occasional 'hello'. Under stark red-and-blue lighting, he and the rest of the band perform without swagger or showmanship as they begin with Backwash, which starts off sounding like post-punk stalwarts The Fall and ends up resembling the soundtrack to an alien invasion. Gilla Band have a murky prehistory as an Arctic Monkeys-style collective of guitar urchins called Harrows. Correctly concluding that Ireland didn't need another so-so indie band, they went from the next potential Picture This to a portrait of the musical apocalypse, influenced more by Francis Bacon then Franz Ferdinand. There is real darkness threaded through the pummeling, too. Kiely has talked about issues around anxiety. The group's second album, 2019's The Talkies, began with a recording of the singer breathing through a panic attack (foreshadowing Fontaines DC's single Starburster, which explores the same subject). The sheer, howling intensity of it all means their music isn't for everyone – or perhaps even most people. At In the Meadows, it has the quality of nerve-shredding Marmite as Kiely uncorks his lacerating wit on Post Ryan ('In recovery/I'm in recovery/I'm just the same prick'). They conclude with the funny and terrifying Eight Fivers – where nightmarish lyrics accompany a Stygian avalanche of guitar. 'I spent all my money on shit clothes, shit clothes,' howls Kiely. 'Didn't get 'em from Wicklow/Didn't get 'em from Arklow.' It's thrillingly, brutally uncompromising. Stepping out of the festival tent, into the cool, calm evening daylight, there is a sense of a storm having passed – that the listener has completed a sort of indie rock Stations of the Cross.
RTÉ News
17-05-2025
- Entertainment
- RTÉ News
10 other arts and music festivals to check out this summer
Whisper it - lest you provoke the weather gods - but with this prolonged period of glorious sunshine we've been having, it's the perfect time to start planning your summer festival schedule. Amidst the big players - the Longitudes and the All Together Nows, the Electric Picnics and the Galway International Arts Festivals - there are plenty of other lesser-known music and arts gems to be appreciated across the coming months. So whether you're not into milling around with tens of thousands of punters or you're simply looking for something a little off the beaten track, here are ten other music and arts festivals to check out. 1. Festival of Writing and Ideas | June 6th - 8th | Borris, Co. Carlow This brilliant festival does exactly what it says on the tin: it gathers together an array of brilliant minds, thinkers, speakers, writers and idea-generators at the picturesque Borris House in County Carlow for an annual shindig. This year's programme includes authors John Banville, Paul Murray, Maggie Armstrong and Sinéad Gleeson, musicians Colin Greenwood and Conor O'Brien, actors Fiona Shaw, Kristin Scott Thomas, Rupert Everett and Eileen Walsh, and many more. 2. Open Ear Festival | May 29th - June 1st | Cork Keep both your ears and your minds open for this gem. Not only is the line-up a stellar showing of some of the most interesting irish acts around - from the Choice-nominated Róis to renowned violinist Caoimhín Ó Ragallaigh and experimental psych-rock artist Elaine Malone - but the novelty of travelling to it by ferry adds to its unique nature. It takes place on Sherkin Island off the coast of Cork, with camping and glamping available on site. 3. In the Meadows | June 7th | Dublin Any opportunity to see the Godfather of Punk, Iggy Pop, is always worth taking. When you add in an array of superb bands - both Irish and international - across a day-long event, it's doubly so. The punk legend will headline and has also curated the bill for the second In the Meadows festival at the Royal Hospital, Kilmainham, which includes Gilla Band, Slowdive, Sprints, Lambrini Girls, Muireann Bradley and more. 4. Carlow Arts Festival | June 4th - 8th The organisers of this long-running event have pulled together an impressive programme for 2025, with a nicely-balanced mix of music, theatre, visual arts, spoken word, comedy, workshops and more. Highlights include multi-hyphenate artist SexyTadhg, Emman Idama's comedy show No Blacks, No Dogs, No Irish, music by Ye Vagabonds and the community-led Carnival of Collective Joy; who wouldn't want to see such a spectacle? 5. When Next We Meet | June 7th - 8th | Clonmel, Co. Tipperary If a celebration of some of the finest independent acts on the Irish music scene sounds like your kind of thing, this intimate festival is well worth checking out. Now in its fourth year, the 2025 programme takes place at the Raheen House Hotel in Clonmel and will see Villagers, Pillow Queens, Paddy Hanna, Morgana and more entertain the masses. With a capacity for only 800 people max per night, there'll be no shoving required to get to the front at this comparatively cosy gathering. 6. Forest Fest Music & Arts Festival | July 25th - 27th | Emo, Co. Laois For one weekend a year, the village of Emo, Co. Laois plays host to some of the big-hitters from the music world over the last twenty years. With a bias towards indie and rock, this year's excellent line-up includes Manic Street Preachers, Franz Ferdinand, Teenage Fanclub, Travis, The Dandy Warhols and more. If you're an old school raver, however, Orbital will provide the goods, while there's also an Ibiza Rewind stage, a Forest Fleadh area, a family area and much more. 7. Body & Soul: A Wake | August 16th - 18th | Exact location TBC, but Co. Meath After 14 editions, the Body & Soul festival sadly came to an end in 2023 - but that's not quite where the story ends. Although details are scant, it's worth keeping an eye on what this 'wake' might entail. Described as a 'final send-off' for the beloved festival, organisers have stressed that it's "not a festival" - but there is a (loose) dress code and there will no doubt be entertainment at this "intimate gathering rooted in the energy of an Irish Wake". More info will be revealed to those attending closer to the time. 8. West Cork Literary Festival | July 11th - 18th | Bantry, Co. Cork What an outstanding programme awaits in Banty, West Cork this summer - as if you need an excuse to visit such a stunning corner of Ireland. Big hitters like Richard E. Grant, Sarah Moss, Alan Hollinghurst, Neil Jordan and local boy Graham Norton will rub shoulders with various luminaries (Eimear McBride, Claire Kilroy) and newcomers of the Irish literary scene, including Ferdia Lennon, Seán Ronayne, Louise Hegarty and more - with plenty of free events, talks, workshops and even a festival swim in the mix, too. Undoubtedly one of the best literary line-ups of the year. 9. Another Love Story | August 23rd - 24th | Killyon, Co. Meath This festival, which launched in 2014, has established itself as one of the smallest-but-most-perfectly-formed festivals on the Irish circuit, always curating a beautifully well-rounded programme that will appeal to music lovers of all tastes. This year's event includes sets by Spanish DJ/producer John Talabot, singer-songwriter Fionn Regan, Dublin rapper Curtisy, folk duo Dug and more. 10. Night and Day | June 27th - 29th | Boyle, Co. Roscommon It's not just music that's the draw for this festival in Lough Key Forest Park in Co. Roscommon, although there's plenty of interest on that front (from KT Tunstall to Paul Brady, and The Wailers to José González). There's also a family zone and accompanying programme to keep the tiddlers happy, with workshops, dancing, circus skills, lego and more, alongside a wellness area to provide some tranquility away from the hustle and bustle.
Irish Times
22-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Irish Times
New Irish albums reviewed and rated: Paddy Hanna, Lullahush, Cushla, Maria Somerville and Danny Groenland
Paddy Hanna: Oylegate (Strange Brew ) ★★★★☆ Paddy Hanna has been a critics' darling for years. Oylegate, his fifth album, may not help him cross the line to commercial success, but if there is some contentment in writing songs that make the weight of the world less burdensome, then he has achieved that, at least. Produced by Daniel Fox of Gilla Band, the album features silky-smooth – which is strikingly ironic given that the songs' lyrics are influenced by 'the crushing lows and euphoric highs of parenthood' and 'by an artist embracing change rather than fighting it', as Hanna puts it in the album notes. [ Self Esteem on the music business: 'It's things like dressing rooms with only a urinal which make women give up' Opens in new window ] Lullahush: Ithaca (Future Classic) ★★★☆☆ The Athens-based Dubliner Daniel McIntyre, aka Lullahush, is on to something with Ithaca, his paganistic marriage of traditional Irish music and twitchy electronica. The album is a brazenly multilayered piece of work, by turns serious and skittish. Irish colloquialisms and spoken word sit beside spine-tingling sean-nós (Saileog Ní Cheannabháin's An Droighneán Donn), Hawaiian guitars, techno drones, the vocals of Maija Sofia (radiant on Jimmy an Chladaigh) and the most imaginative version of Patrick Kavanagh's Raglan Road you're likely to hear. Occasionally messy it might be, but McIntyre has fashioned something different here, something bold, something else. Cushla: Tech Duinn (Foehn Records) ★★★☆☆ Cushla's debut album, Tech Duinn, a collaborative project between the Wexford-based producer Marc Fernandez, the Co Kilkenny composer and remixer Leo Pearson and the Co Cork Gaeltacht singer Nell Ní Chróinín, pleasingly ventures to places we're becoming very much accustomed to. Tracks such as The Mountain, 7 Years, Aisling, Fós and Geantraí nimbly fuse sean-nós with soft drum-machine pulses, synthesiser embellishments and engrossing ambient music. Maria Somerville: Luster (4AD) ★★★☆☆ Maria Somerville has never been reticent about drawing influences from her native Connemara, but what marks her out as an original is the way she complements the uneven, magnificent wilderness of the landscapes with lush shoegaze and slow-motion postpunk. She wrote and recorded most of Luster at home, close to Lough Corrib, with notable contributions from Ian Lynch of Lankum, who provides uilleann-pipe drones on Violet, and Margie Jean Lewis, who plays violin on Flutter. READ MORE Danny Groenland: Burning Rome (self-released) ★★★★☆ Danny Groenland's album Burning Rome brings influences of Steely Dan, Weather Report, Marvin Gaye, Curtis Mayfield and D'Angelo to its meticulously executed soul/jazz. The narrative focus may not be joyful – themes include homelessness, inequality, mental health, police brutality, climate change, racism and genocide – but not one song on the album is a drag to listen to. From soulful summer heat (Somewhere) and Steely Dan-style silkiness (Work Out) to piano ballads (Never Going Home) and positive vibes (Chip In), Burning Rome sizzles from start to end.
