Looking forward to
CastlepaloozaThe best small festival on the Irish circuit last year returns to Tullamore over the August bank-holiday weekend with Naughty By Nature, Onra, Clock Opera, Djanago Django, Daithí O Dronaí and dozens more.
Dublin Writers Festivalfrom May 23rd to 29th, when Michael Palin, Paul Theroux, Jon Ronson and Michael Longley, plus the usual stalwarts of the literary festivals, come together.
Playing
Portal 2and marvelling at its intelligence and wit.
Listening to
The new Beastie Boys album, Hot Sauce Committee Part Two, and the latest from Miracle Fortress, Was I the Wave?
We're also relistening to Iggy Pop's 1999 album Avenue B. Ruminative spoken word and jazzy interludes. His best solo album, alongside The Idiot?Yep.
Planning
Corona Fastnet Short Film Festival in Schull, west Co Cork, from May 26th to 29th. The town has no cinema, so laptops, phones, a horsebox, a bus and the parish hall will be among the venues; fastnetshortfilmfestival.com.
Underwhelmed by Glasvegas
About midway through this performance at the Academy in Dublin, the Glasvegas frontman James Allan leaned into the crowd and accepted a mobile phone being proffered by an excited fan in the front row – with another Glasvegas fan on the other end of the line. Barely missing a beat, Allan continued to croon into both phone and mic, an amusing vignette that illustrates the depth of feeling between the Glasgow band and their devout followers.
Back in 2008 Glasvegas burst on an unsuspecting musical public with their acclaimed eponymous debut, full of sharply observed lyrics and irrepressible tunes. The combination of his acidic Glasgow delivery and those soaraway terrace-friendly anthems made for a pretty potent, and extremely popular, concoction. But those fans have waited quite a while for the follow-up, the just-released Euphoric Heartbreak, and it’s far from clear whether Allan and his band have lived up to expectations.
Allan initially hid behind some dark shades and muddy vocoder while racing through a few new tracks that largely failed to engage the crowd. His mic was an eccentric piece of stage design, with a thick glowing cable resembling an alien umbilical cord, and he clutched on to it with both hands for most of the show, as if beseeching a higher power for forgiveness or inspiration. It wasn't until the epic It's My Own Cheating Heart That Makes Me Crythat the crowd woke up, singing all the lyrics with such lusty, throat-busting vigour that Allan simply gave up, draping his mic over his shoulders like a fluorescent boa.
Their new drummer, the Swede Jonna Löfgren, fit right in; Allan’s cousin Rab on guitar and Paul Donoghue on bass cut rather muted figures.
The show's highlights were, predictably enough, the hits from their debut, received with remarkable intensity, but Allan's brand of earnest emoting failed to match the crowd's sincere vitality. Unfortunately, the moment with the fan's mobile wasn't the only time it felt like Allan was phoning it in. Davin O'Dwyer
Watching
Detroit 187. It may be a fairly standard police procedural, but it has some great turns from a cast that includes Michael "Christopher from The Sopranos" Imperioli and some fantastic Motor City music on the soundtrack.
Conanon 3e and enjoying the eccentric sketches, insanely famous guests and American positivity.
Going to
The Human League, tomorrow at Vicar Street in Dublin. From television (Glee) to movies (Cyrus), they remain a soundtrack to our lives.
Reading
Hellhound on His Trail, Hampton Sides's thrilling account of the hunt for the killer of Martin Luther King jnr.
Mike Carey's and Peter Gross's comic books The Unwritten, with fictional characters who become real, over-the-top gore and Rudyard Kipling as a central character.
Curious about SceneNotHerd, in which teens give their verdict on and ideas for events, with the aim of staging them down the line. Check out "Turning your hobby into a career in arts/culture and becoming an artist, writer, actor, or musician" on Wednesday at 4pm in the Culture Box on East Essex Street, D2; templebar.ie.
