Given that the first official gig of Belfast Music Week fell on Halloween, the abundance of superheroes, witches and tiger onesies was assumed. The first band of the night, Colly Strings, unsuccessfully attempted to emulate the gothic cool of A Clockwork Orange’s Alex DeLarge. Instead, they resembled a quartet of immaculately turned out butlers. Dubious costume choices aside, the band won over the crowd with a splendid set, but still paled in comparison to the next twenty minutes from Rainy Boy Sleep.
BY TARA MCEVOY Continue reading
Belfast City Council and the Northern Ireland Tourist Board contributed £870,000 to bring the EMAs to Belfast on 5 November. An event like this has a lot of power behind it and with 1.2 billion viewers tuning in all over the world, all eyes were on Belfast.
The MTV EMAs were incredible. Whether you liked the music, layout or even the show itself, it’s obvious there was a lot of effort to make Belfast look as great as possible. But what would the average tourist be met with, stumbling into some bar offering live music? Well, if it’s anything like the music heard at Belfast Calling, there would be no doubt that they would be blown away.
When you look back on your childhood and early adolescence, there’s a big chance that many of your brightest memories will contain the hypnotic tinge of the television set. Most of us will remember those Saturday mornings, sneaking downstairs before everyone else, to sample a dose of Live and Kicking, SM:TV Live or Den TV. Even now we can’t shake off the influence of Dustin the Turkey or the Animaniacs, as someone on those nights out takes it upon themselves to be the comedian extraordinaire, playing their well-worn repertoire of impersonations and recycled jokes garnered from the shows that made them giggle all those years ago.
Conducting a little experiment in the run-up to the MTV EMAs in Belfast, I asked five people if they were aware it was Belfast Music Week – not the greatest survey in the world, but the results may still be relevant nonetheless. Of the five, only one had actually heard of the event. The remaining four gave responses ranging from, “Well, that’s not very original,” to an enthusiastic, “Well, that’s good! Maybe some good bands will play.”
Portstewart three piece, Axis Of were described in 2010 by ‘Rock Sound Magazine’ as being “the most exciting band to come out of Northern Ireland, possibly ever.” No wonder the Speakeasy was rammed with raucous, die-hard fans before they played.