Monday
The Prodigy
3Arena, Dublin 8pm €52.65 3Arena.ie Also Tues, Belfast
Big beats are The Prodigy’s specialty – that and a punk rock approach that can often veer into caricature. That said, there are few enough bands around these days that can manage to fuse granite-hard edges with dance beats, so let’s make hay while the sun shines, eh? In keeping with the overall mood of aggro and conflict, special guests are Public Enemy.
The Prodigy After Party
The Bunker, Dublin 11pm €15 facebook.com/bunkerdublin
One of two events happening after The Prodigy and Public Enemy show (the other is at Pgymalion with Public Enemy’s DJ Lord), this one takes over the new-ish club located in the basement of what was Harry’s Bar in the Point Village. Prodigy tour DJ and Dublin homeboy Arveene will join regulars Al Gibbs and Steve O to keep the tunes going until Tuesday morning.
Tuesday
Marina and the Diamonds
The Limelight, Belfast 7pm £22 limelightbelfast.com Also Wed/Thurs, Dublin
Welsh-Greek performer/ songwriter Marina Diamandis has delivered one of the year’s best pop albums in Froot, and the accompanying live shows (as part of what she calls the Neon Nature tour)reference her three sparkling studio albums across distinct ‘acts’. Gigs of the week.
Yeats: 'A lonely impulse of delight'
SO Fine Art Editions, 10 South Anne St, Dublin Until Jan 30 sofinearteditions.com
32 writers and visual artists mark the 150th anniversary of WB Yeats’s birth. Writers are John Banville, Eavan Boland, Paul Muldoon, Edna O’Brien and Colm Tóibín. Visual artists include Yoko Akino, Jean Bardon, Jon Behan, Michael Canning, Diana Copperwhite, Michael Cullen, Martin Gale, Richard Gorman, Ed Miliano, Niall Naessens, Hughie O’Donoghue, Amelia Stein and Donald Teskey. There’s a full-colour, hard-cover publication with an introduction by RF Foster and an essay by Peter Fallon.
Wednesday
Against the Current
Mark Dion Ormston House, 9-10 Patrick St, Limerick Until Feb 13 ormstonhouse.com
Mark Dion’s exhibition stems from a research residency in Limerick, and it concerns “the depletion of wild species in Ireland’s rivers”. Dion is a conceptual artist who focuses on natural history, field work and biology, using sculpture, installation, photography and printmaking, and has built an international reputation. He considers the state of the River Shannon and shows a large-scale piece, The Salmon of Knowledge Returns.
Prodigal Son / Andreas Varady Trio
JJ Smyths, Aungier st 8pm €15 jjsmyths.com
Slovakian-born guitarist Andreas Varady relocated to Limerick with his family in 2007 at the age of nine. Soon after, word began to filter out of a jazz guitar prodigy with supernatural ability living by the Shannon. Now a veteran aged 16, the word has spread and Varady is an international star, touring with George Benson and managed by Quincy Jones. Here’s a rare chance to hear him in Ireland, with his father Bandi on bass.
Thursday
Lianne La Havas
Olympia theatre Dublin 8pm €25 ticketmaster.ie
Taking it nice and slowly – and with some style – is what Lianne La Havas (above) is all about. A previous nominee of the BBC Sound of 2012 poll, she has since advanced to bigger and better things, notably a close (but not too close!) association with Prince, and this year’s rather snazzy (and quite personal) album Blood. Think stylish, think svelte, think smooth.
Rough Magic SEEDS: Unspoken & Enjoy
Project Arts Centre. Unspoken: Dec 3-5 6pm & Enjoy: Dec 1-5 8.15pm €11 projectartscentre.ie
They shoot up so fast, these SEEDS, now bringing the seventh crop of theatre artists mentored by Rough Magic with this biennial showcase. As ever, the display is informed by the participants: playwright Shane Mac an Bhaird, director Zoe Ni Riordain, set designer Cait Corkery and composers, Danny Forde and Cameron Macaulay, which this year has resulted in some intriguing platforms and much multi-tasking. Macaulay just finished work as composer and co-director (with Mac an Bhaird) on Anna Bella Eema, for instance.
Director Zoe Ní Riordáin now stages the Irish premiere of Toshiki Okada’s mumblecore portrait of Japan’s Lost Generation, Enjoy, with a sensational generational cast, while Forde scores the new dance piece Unspoken, with Mac an Bhaird’s play Traitor presented as a rehearsed reading next week. (Corkery’s design work is everywhere across the programme.) A diverse programme, SEEDS always bears encouraging fruit.
