Paramore will be headlining Belsonic in Belfast, Northern Ireland on August 19th! Tickets for the event will go on sale Friday, May 18th.
You Me At Six have been forced to postpone their Dublin and Belfast dates on their upcoming UK tour due to illness.
The Dublin Olympia Theatre date, due to take place on March 15th, has been rescheduled to April 7th, and the Belfast Ulster Hall date has been reschduled from March 14th to April 8th.
Check out a statement from the band and vocalist Josh Franceschi below.
LIGHTS has added 2 Irish shows onto her 2012 UK tour! She’ll play Belfast’s Speakeasy on February 12th, and Dublin’s Academy 2 on February 13th.
The Blackout Interview
After a successful year of touring following the release of their fourth album ‘Hope’, The Blackout are a band that are only becoming bigger and better. Hailing from Merthyr Tydfil in Wales, this sextet are set to wave goodbye to 2011 with a string of shows in the UK and Ireland.
Snapshot Symphony’s Rachel got the chance to catch up with vocalist Gavin Butler and guitarist James “Bob” Davies to talk about their upcoming Irish shows, how they plan to follow up to ‘Hope’ and their Snapshot perfect moment.
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SSP: You’ll be playing Dublin’s Academy on December 17th, and in Mandela Hall in Belfast on the 18th, if you could pick any song in the world to describe how excited you are for these shows, which would you choose?
James Davies, Guitar: Exit Music (for a film) by Radiohead.
Gavin Butler, Vocals: Cyndi Lauper - Girls just Wanna have fun.
Do you have any interesting plans for these shows seeing they’re so close to Christmas?
JD : We’re gonna try and bring as much production from the Hope tour as we can. Maybe we’ll knock up some other surprises. You’ll have to come along to find out!!
GB: We may dress Snoz up as Jesus or Santa depending on how busy the fancy dress store is. Also because we can’t afford a present for everyone we’ll play pass the parcel, then in between every song who ever has it has to try and tear the package open. It’s gonna have to be a small present in a lot of packaging.
Describe what fans who head to see you in Ireland can expect from your live show in two words?
JD: Party Time.
GB: LOUD NOISES!
You released ‘Hope’ back in April this year and have been touring near-constantly since it’s release, have you had fun on the touring run for this album?
JD : This has probably been the best album cycle for us, from a live perspective. We’ve had a blast playing the UK and Ireland. As well as Australia at the beginning of the year. We’ve just got back for Europe and those shows we’re crazy as well. The show at London Roundhouse on Nov 6th is probably the best show we’ve ever played.
GB: We always have fun touring, it’s what the band was born to do. We never expected to release albums we just wanted to play live. The shows we’ve played since the release have been some of our biggest and best.
There’s a good few covers on the deluxe version of Hope, will we be hearing a full cover album from The Blackout any time soon?
JB: I doubt it! We like doing some covers in now and again, we like playing songs we all love or get us pumped. I think if we did a full record of covers the novelty would wear off a bit.
GB: We’ve always done a few covers when we needed to. Basically for b-sides or for a laugh. With all the covers we’ve done we could probably put a compilation together but there are no plans.
The Blackout have announced Belfast and Dublin dates for this December! The Welsh sextet will play Dublin’s Academy on Saturday, December 17th, followed by Belfast’s Mandela Hall on December 18th! Tickets will be on sale through Ticketmaster at 9am on Thursday, and We Are The Ocean will be supporting on both dates.
Good news for All Time Low fans in Northern Ireland - The Baltimore boys are set to play Belfast’s Ulster Hall on January 15th! Standing Tickets are £23.75 with booking fee and are available from Ticketmaster. There’s no sign of a Dublin date for those in the south, but we’ll keep you posted!
Bring Me The Horizon have revealed that they are set to play 2 shows in Ireland this August. The band are going to play Dublin’s Academy on August 25th, and Belfast’s Mandela Hall on August 24th. Support is said to come from While She Sleeps. Tickets will be available this coming Friday, July 8th, from Ticketmaster.
The Maine/NeverShoutNever - Belfast Speakeasy, 19/3/11
It’s a beautiful Saturday in Belfast, the sun is shining and it’s almost like summer. Anyone in their right mind would spend it at the park or somewhere of the sort, but The Maine and NeverShoutNever’s hardcore fans spent it queuing in the shade outside the city’s Speakeasy Bar. The excitement in the queue was palpable, with no one complaining about missing the gorgeous weather. It was early doors for this show, 3pm, and by about 2:55 everyone began making plans to run in and grab their spot. Having been to Dublin the day before, the Belfast queue appeared… tamer, if you will.
Doors opened at 3pm exactly, and everyone had to endure an hour wait for NeverShoutNever in the almost excruciating heat of the room, completely sold out. I’m going to take this part to say that the security at the venue were the best I have ever witnessed, and they were extremely friendly too, helping out as much as they could.
Vocalist Christofer Drew and drummer Hayden Kaiser graced the stage about 3:55, much to the enjoyment of every teenage girl in the venue judging by the screams from the crowd. Opening the set with fan favourite ‘Love Is The Weapon’, Christofer Drew displays just exactly why he’s considered a good performer. Putting a live twist on the song, amongst others in the set including “Trouble” , making each song completely different to how it’s recorded, signalling Nevershoutnever are an act you don’t want to miss live. Drew is also amazing at interacting with the crowd, taking the time to talk to fans from the stage, to sign things thrusted at him and just generally exhuming confidence on stage. For a support act, his set was around the standard length but it was amazing how much energy he could fit into the time. He played songs both new and old, including “This Shit Getz Old” and “Big City Dreams.” One of the highlights of his set however, was when he seemed genuinely shocked that a fan shouted “Chris, I’m here for your music!” at him. This just proves how much of a heartthrob he’s perceived to be, when all he really wants to do is play his music. The slight disappointment of the set, however, was that Chris seemed to be doing all the work as far as getting the crowd into the music and interacting with the crowd, while drummer Hayden sat there a good amount of the time with his mouth shut. While Kaiser is a good musician, it would have been nice to see him contribute to livening up the set. 9/10
The Maine has a reputation or two as a live band. They’re considered to be one of the best young live bands in the US, proven by the fact that most of the pre-sale tickets for their upcoming US tour sold out in mere minutes. This, however is not the US, so The Maine still had to prove themselves to the people of Belfast. Thankfully, they went above and beyond every expectation people may have had. Opening the set with new track ‘My Heroine’, the energy in the room was beyond anything I have experienced before at a show. The band all looked like they were genuinely happy to be there, something a lot of bands these days don’t exactly portray clearly on stage. The band have an energy that I personally have never seen in a band before. From bassist Garrett Nickelsen putting his all into the show, running around and headbanging and just going utterly mental, to drummer Pat Kirch playing his instrument as if his life depended on it.
The band didn’t play as many songs as expected from their debut album ‘Can’t Stop, Won’t Stop’, but when they did play from the album, the reception the crowd gave was amazing. Playing one of their biggest tracks, ‘Into Your Arms’, almost every girl in the room was convinced frontman John O’Callaghan was singing it to them. The band also played another hit from that album, ‘Girls Do What They Want.’ This song sounds so different live than recorded in regard to key and pitch, but they made it work. The band also pulled up a girl to sing the last refrain with them, which went down well, though there were a few jealous audience members!
The bulk of the set was made up of songs from the Arizonians current release ‘Black And White’, but they also threw in three new songs. The afore mentioned ‘My Heroine’, and then ‘Ice Cave’ and ‘Our Street’. ‘Ice Cave’ is something completely different to the rest of The Maine’s music. With a slower, more edgier feel to it, this track is certain to gain the band a wider fanbased when a studio version is released. This seemed to be the centre point of the show, with O’Callaghan telling everyone to close their eyes and make believe they were swimming through the sea to a mysterious, well, ice cave. With a lot of the crowd only hearing it for the first time, there were a lot of mixed opinions, but the majority vote was a good one.
Overall, The Maine put on a fantastic show. Honestly, there was nothing I would have changed about the way their set went. They played for just under an hour and a half, and they interacted with the crowd more than most bands of their status do. With rumours the band will be coming back to Dublin at least before December, this is a band you seriously do not want to miss live. 10/10
