Event of the week
Billie Eilish
Saturday, July 26th/Sunday, July 27th, 3Arena, 5.30pm, (sold out), tickermaster.ie
After six years and three immensely successful albums (the latest of which, Hit Me Hard and Soft, lends its title to her current world tour), Billie Eilish is as much an activist as a pop star, often fusing political and socio-sexual issues within her songs.
From 2019’s All the Good Girls Go to Hell (which addresses climate change) and 2021’s Your Power (which highlights the sexual harassment of young women) to 2024’s Lunch (which explores same-sex attraction), she has never concealed her opinions to gain favour.
The show and the music? In a review of Eilish’s July 10th 24-song set at London’s O2 Arena, UK newspaper The Independent said: “The night unfolds like a series of magic tricks … She wields as much power in her stillness as she does in her hyperactivity.” Consider yourself lucky if you have a ticket.
Gigs
Mogwai
Saturday, July 26th/Sunday, July 27th, Vicar Street, Dublin, 7pm, €51.40; Tuesday, July 29th, Mandela Hall, Belfast, 7pm, £43.95, ticketmaster.ie
This year celebrates Mogwai’s 30th anniversary as one of the best post-rock bands out there. It took a while for Mogwai’s often bruising sound to develop, and it wasn’t until their 2003 album, Happy Songs for Happy People, and the 2004 follow-up album, Mr Beast, that they began to gain commercial momentum. Soundtrack work followed, most notably for the 2006 documentary, Zidane: A 21st Century Portrait, and latterly for the 2022 Apple TV+ series Black Bird. Mogwai’s most recent album, The Bad Fire, smartly continues with their quiet-loud-quiet style morphing into what The Quietus describes as a series of “pneumatic crescendos”. Special guests are Glasgow sibling duo Cloth.
RM Block
Don’t Touch My Knob
Friday, August 1st, Elizabeth Fort, Cork, 8.30pm, €20, eventbrite.ie
Gender diversity is a regular problematic issue when it comes to event line-ups (and, of course, radio play), so much so that Cork musician Áine Duffy devised a one-day mini-festival featuring an exclusively all-female programme. Alongside Duffy performing, other acts include DJ Natalie Mac (co-founder of the Electronic Music Council), multi-instrumentalist Ria Rua, and comedian Sinéad Quinlan. “This isn’t just a gig, it’s a statement,” says Duffy. Women, she adds, “are taking back the stage”.
Festival
All Together Now
From Thursday, July 31st until Sunday, August 3rd, Curraghmore Estate, Co Waterford, (sold out), alltogethernow.ie
More compact than Electric Picnic but with similar levels of creative oomph, All Together Now features a ridiculously eclectic range of artists, along with the kind of sidebar strands and events that are expertly devised and operated. From top to bottom, the line-up is superb. Headliners include Fontaines DC, London Grammar, CMAT, and Wet Leg, while further down the bill there are numerous must-see acts, including John Grant, Baxter Dury, 49th & Main, English Teacher, A Lazarus Soul, Landless and the perennial festival favourite – Many More Across All Stages. Partnered with music offerings are in-conversation events, visual arts, theatre, food and panel discussions.
Film
GAZE Film Festival
From Tuesday, July 29th until Monday, August 4th, Lighthouse Cinema/IFI, Dublin, gaze.ie
The 33rd edition of GAZE features Irish, European and world premieres of international features, animation, shorts, and Irish-language film. Compelling highlights include Plainclothes, starring Russell Tovey as a 1990s New York undercover police officer tasked with entrapping gay men; Drive Back Home, featuring Alan Cumming; Norwegian film-maker Dag Johan Haugerud’s award-winning Oslo Stories Trilogy: Dreams; the documentary Strange Journey: The Story of Rocky Horror; and the rare 1990s lesbian classic, High Art, starring Ally Sheedy and Patricia Clarkson. Sidebar events include post-screening discussions with visiting filmmakers.
Stage
The Lunch Punch Power Hour in Conference Room 4
From Thursday, July 31st until Saturday, September 6th, Peacock Stage, Abbey Theatre, Dublin, 8pm, €32.50/€20, abbeytheatre.ie
During lunch hour in a locked office, three ostensibly diligent employees decide how best to spend their company’s annual Corporate Social Responsibility budget. Such a task might seem feasible, but without management peering over their shoulders the workers launch into awkward, farcical disputes that expose uneasy disclosures and power plays. Caitríona Daly writes, Raymond Keane directs.
Literature
John Hewitt International Summer School
From Monday, July 28th until Saturday, August 2nd, Market Place Theatre, Armagh, Co Armagh, johnhewittsociety.org
Inspired by Belfast-born John Hewitt’s enduring legacy as a poet/historian/activist, this annual summer school and arts festival investigates significant, diverse societal issues of the day through the voices of artists, authors, and thinkers. Events include In Conversation sessions (David Park, Monday, July 28th, 1.30pm, £12; Ian Rankin and Jane Casey, Tuesday, July 29th, 8.30pm, £16; Donal Ryan, Wednesday, July 30th, 1.30pm, £12; Wendy Erskine, Thursday, July 31st, 1.30pm, £12), poetry readings (Hannah Copley and Gustav Parker Hibbert, Thursday, July 31st, 11.15am, £12), and public interviews (Sally Hayden, with Malachi O’Doherty, Friday, August 1st, 9.45am, £10).
Visual art
Reveal/Conceal
Until Saturday, August 16th, The Cowshed Gallery, Farmleigh, Phoenix Park, Dublin, admission free, farmleigh.ie
Bringing together 25 multidisciplinary artists from the Louth Craftmark Designers Network, Reveal/Conceal features work covering sculpture, print, textiles, glass, jewellery, ceramics and painting. Featured artists include painter Orla Barry, fused-glass artist Aoife Burke, ceramicist Maureen Finn, textile artist Mel Bradley, Suzanne Carroll, whose work explores ecological loss through painting, and Rachel Tinniswood, whose blending of fabric, thread, wax resist, and hand/machine-embroidery explores environmental frailty and nature’s tougher textures.
Still running
WTAF!?
Until Wednesday, July 30th, various venues/times/prices, Galway, wtafgalway.com
WTAF!? (aka Westend Theatre & Arts Festival) is a newcomer that welcomes “DIY dramatists, rogue musicians, chaotic creators and anyone who’s ever felt like they don’t fit the mould”. Included in the inaugural event are theatre (Night in Nighthawks, Massimo Bar), jazz fusion (Karl Clews Trio, Monday, July 28th, The Blue Note Bar, 6pm), and circus (Eye of the Storm, Róisín Dubh, Wednesday, July 30th, 8pm).
Book it this week
- Hard Skin, Bellobar, Dublin, October 18th, foggynotions.ie
- Pillow Queens, NCH, Dublin, October 21st, nch.ie
- Deftones, 3Arena, Dublin, February 16th, ticketmaster.ie
- Vittorio Angelone, Vicar Street, Dublin, April 26th/27th, ticketmaster.ie
