Cruachan and guests in Dublin

This weekend, the husband and I went off to Dublin for our first gig since Feb 2020, which also happened to be our first gig since moving to Ireland.

Ah, yes, that happened. We moved to Ireland! But we will come back to that another time, maybe.

It has also been our first semi-post-pandemic big outing, so we were a little nervous about being around a lot of people again. To be honest, we’ve been avoiding gatherings for the last few months for many reasons, and even visiting restaurants have made us nervous. And yes, we are both fully vaccinated, but there are so many people out there who are quite selfish in this regard that we’ve just generally steered clear of people.

Anyway…

The gig was at The Grand Social, which is a grand venue indeed along the river Liffey and in a vibrant part of Dublin city. From arrival, we met some lovely friendly Irish metal heads and other assorted interesting folks, and it was so nice to just be for a bit, let our hair down and laugh quite a bit. Not sure if anyone’s noticed, but the Irish are quite funny in a ha-ha-ha kind of way.

And then the music started.

 

The first band up was God Alone.

I wish a picture could convey a vibe much better. Or the energy that these young lads had.

I may be slightly obsessed with telling everyone about them now.

These lads. My god. They blew my socks off. This stage was definitely not big enough for them, or their sound. They are a wonderful chaotic blend of many different sounds I love. My quick note to myself during the gig was that they sound like Opeth, Bauhaus and Einsturzende Neubauten spawned an offspring. I am not even sure if that was their intent, but the prog metal sound is strong in there.

After this, Ravenlight took to the stage with a good strong sound and fabulous female vocals.

We got a little overwhelmed by the number of people in the venue, so didn’t see too much of the Ravenlight set, and missed the Old Season set completely, but did manage to catch the headliners, Cruachan (pronounced kroo-kan apparently), who certainly did not disappoint. Strong folk metal sound and a fantastic stage presence – so glad we caught them.

We had a great night out, despite feeling a bit overwhelmed, and it was much needed.

The next gig we will be attending will be with the Hothouse Flowers and a few other bands on New Years’s Eve, and then Ensiferum and Dark Tranquility in April 2022.