Gigs of the Year 2024

Yup. Ruined The Smile gig in the 3 Arena for me.

well I only went to two

Depeche Mode 3Arena

Orbital Vicar Street

both excellent gigs.

My favourite gig of this year was Air@Trinity College.

Other gigs I really enjoyed;

Roisin Murphy. .Olympia Theatre

Leftfield...Galway Big Top

Crowded House/Waterboys…Virgin Media Park Cork

PJ Harvey..Custom House Sq. Belfast

Stipe(REM tribute band) White Horse Ballincollig

Best gig this year and best gig of the last ten years for me was Massive Attack in Liverpool in November. Incredible show.

An acquaintance of mine who lives there said much the same thing. He hadn't enjoyed a gig so much in years, reckoned it was stunning in every way.

In fairness, I only ever imagined "a real taste of Dublin crowd" referring to it as Trinners.

FWIW, I meant it mockingly….

Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds was easily my gig of the year.

Outside of that, I was lucky to get to see some cracking gigs this year too that would fill my top 10 in no particular order:

LCD, Fontaines, Taylor Swift, Rejjie Snow, Stevie Nicks, Peter Hook and the Light, The Killers, P!nk, Coldplay as well as over 50 comedy gigs between Edinburgh and Dublin.

It was a good year and I was lucky to see some great shows. I'll be happy if 2025 is even half as good.

😊

T-shirts of the year...

Great year of live music with new venues and new experiences. Enjoyed visiting The Academy for the first time as well as the new Co-Op Live Arena in Manchester and of course Mad Cool festival in Madrid. A few honrable mentions of a few

Coldplay Croke Park Night 4- Fantastic light show and atmosphere. Setlist was good with a nice bonus of hearing 'In My Place'

Rammstein RDS- Even with the June daylight it was a great show. I can only imagine how awesome it is in the dark

Weezer 10th June 3Arena/Green Day 27th June Marlay Park - Combing the 2 because of having missed Hella Mega in 2022 because of the Covid Bastard (should still of went tbh). It was amazing finally getting to see the 2 bands over June. Weezer was only a short but great setlist as it was only support for Smashing Pumpkins (who were amazing). Green Days setlist was perfect with 'American Idiot' in full an album that was a mainstay of my CD player back in the day
AC/DC 17th Aug Croke Park- After all the years of speculation it was great to finally see them back here. Still a great live act

Madcool Festival 10-13th July- My first time in Spain and at the festival. It was an enjoyable few days some amazing performances from 'Pearl Jam', 'Thef Killers', 'Smashing Pumpkins', 'Maneskin', 'Sum 41 among more. Was suprised at how good 'James Arthur' and 'Kneecap' were too. The heat was hard work though lowest got most of the evenings was 22 degrees

Bruce Springsteen Kilkenny 12th May- another year another Bruce gig which was great. Kilkenny was buzzing throughout the day. Starting with 'A Rainy Night In Soho' was special

Blink 182 in Kilmainham 27th Aug- it wasn't the worst gig in the world and some of the Hits sounded great but felt it was a bit flat. Not a fan of the venue but will e ndure it for 'Iggy Pop' next summer

Gilbert O'Sullivan Theatre Royal Waterford 10th Dec and The Pogues 3Arena 17th Dec- Was very surprised at how good both were. Maybe it was the 'pre Christmas buzz' but for the most part of each show felt like there wasn't a note wrong all night

Sporting moment was Ally Pally for the Darts, what an experience

2024 was a great year of gigs and The Scratch this weekend will end it very well

2025 looks good and not as 'Blockbuster' (Its expensive travelling to and from Dublin so sorry if i can't afford to travel/support the 'smaller acts or whatever')

The bigger ones:all excellent.

The Smile : 3 Arena & Ally Pally

Depeche Mode: 3 Arena

Fontaines DC: 3 Arena, night 1

Coldplay: Croke Park

Sting: Virgin Media Park

Arcade Fire: Malahide Castle

Smaller gigs:

Houseplants : Other Voices

New Dad: Other Voices

Paul Noonan : solo at Triskel

Ride : Cyprus Avenue

Public Service Broadcasting: Cyprus Avenue

Mercury Rev : Cyprus Avenue

Top 3 probably

Nick Cave & Bad Seeds

Nadine Shah

Phospherescent

Honourable mention: Los Bitchos, MJ Lenderman, Jane Weaver, Public Service Broadcasting and Liz Lawrence

Probably the worst value gig -Gallagher/Squires in the Olympia but with the subsequent "Dynamic Pricing" for Oasis possibly now a bargain?

Most eclectic fanbase for a gig The Beat (featuring Ranking jnr) in the GS - aging Skin heads (Rude boys), Rastafarians, and Rockers.

Most energetic mosh pits - Gurriers / Fat Dog

Regrets - didn't go to Cassandra Jenkins and couldn't get a ticket for Magdalena Bay

At festivals I normally randomly "discover" a band - this year it was Biird at ATN (hope to catch them in the Button factory in 2025).

Only got to be in the audience for 49 gigs in 2024 but if you include the 5 that I performed in, then I definitely smashed the 50. 😉

So many great gigs, I could count the ones I didn’t enjoy on one hand.

My favourite is still Das Fig/Luxury Mollusc in The Grand Social in September. And still can’t share the genius of Luxury Mollusc’s performance because he hasn’t recorded it yet.

Thanks to all here who shared their passion, especially Dreamweapon’s folk drone recommendation amongst others.

Ireland has so much musical talent, can’t wait to start gigging again on Thursday. Bring it on!

This thread prompted me to get in touch with him this afternoon. We’ll see what happens.

Anyways, smashed the 50! The Scratch were beyond awesome. Got the set list as well!

Happy New **** Year gig goers!!!! 😎