Slane Castle has gone country. In the summer of 2026 the venue that hosted Bruce Springsteen, Queen and The Rolling Stones (twice) will open its gates to Luke Combs, a North Carolina singer best known for a cover of Tracy Chapman’s Fast Car that many fans of the original believe should be banished to the scrap heap.
This isn’t quite a first for Slane. For all its aura as a place of pilgrimage for rock fans, it has always been open to new ideas, for better or occasionally worse. Two years ago, for instance, Irish rock’s most heralded venue went pop when it welcomed Harry Styles.
Harry’s Co Meath hurrah was judged a success, and Styles seems to have enjoyed his time in Ireland. (He was recently spotted at a Japanese restaurant in Naas.) But we should also remember Slane’s “Will this do?” years, when headliners included Stereophonics (later to top the bill at a 300-capacity Whelan’s, in Dublin), the Canadian crooner Bryan Adams and, somehow, the mid-tier Britpoppers The Verve.
For all its storied history, Slane hasn’t always got it right, and it is telling that its true glory days were in the mid-1980s, when it welcomed Springsteen and Queen. When it has been bad, it has been a bit of an endurance test (and that’s just the hike back to the bus afterwards).
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But something about the Combs announcement nonetheless feels momentous, a line in the sand that Slane has crossed. It isn’t just that Combs is a country star: country music is hugely popular in Ireland, and, anyway, Combs is a superstar all over. His 2025 tour will also include Murrayfield, in Edinburgh, and Wembley Stadium, in London. (As a bonus, British concertgoers will be spared an incongruous support slot from The Script, who will open for him in Co Meath.)
What is significant is not that Combs is headlining but that no rock’n’roll act of equivalent stature is available to make the journey to the banks of the Boyne.
The reason for that is simply that we are running out of rock stars. The biggest band in the world today is arguably – and I do say arguably – Coldplay, who are halfway through an interminable Music of the Spheres tour. But Chris Martin is 48: when The Rolling Stones were his age, people were already making jokes about their needing Zimmer frames to get on stage.
[ Luke Combs: Who is Slane Castle’s next headliner?Opens in new window ]
Who’s coming up behind? An obvious example is Fontaines DC, the Dublin-Mayo quintet who started off singing about rainy old Dublin but have parlayed that initial success into a monster career as festival and arena headliners. But they’re art rockers who got big rather than rock stars in waiting, and you wonder if they would even be interested in the cartoonish posturing required of acts who graduate to venues such as Slane. They’re artists first, entertainers second – which perhaps puts a limit on how big they can (or would want to) be.
Which leaves ... who, exactly? Sleep Token? Too metal. The 1975? Too annoying. Turnstile? Too much saxophone. What’s for sure is that the music industry doesn’t have the answer. Tellingly, big stadium shows in Ireland next summer are dominated either by bands past their prime (the sexagenarian headbangers Metallica at the Aviva) or y pop acts, such as the Weeknd at Croke Park.
The music industry knows it has a problem, too, as it has started charging eye-watering prices to see acts with an established following – tickets for the indie underdogs Belle and Sebastian in Dublin next year, for example, top out at more than €100 (including the inevitable Ticketmaster fees). When you’re being asked to pay that much to see the composers of Lazy Line Painter Jane, it’s a sure sign that all logic has been abandoned.
The other problem, of course, is that the sure things the industry relies on aren’t willing to tour forever. Taylor Swift has said she won’t be hitting the road any time soon – understandably, given that she spent most of 2023 and 2024 playing live. Coldplay are going to want a long, long break after they finally wind down Music of the Spheres. Are U2 going to tour in the foreseeable future? Considering the critical savaging (some might say justifiably) handed out to their most recent music, it would not be surprising if the answer is in the negative.
Rock music has, of course, been declared dead more times than Hozier has caterwauled his way through Take Me to Church. The good news is that there are still great artists out there, and seeing them live won’t eviscerate your wallet. One of 2025’s best bands, Hotline TNT, for instance, play Dublin in November – and there’s no need to take out a third mortgage for the privilege of attending.
But in terms of the bums-on-seats, squeeze-the-punters-until-they-scream corporate touring world, the options are narrowing. Combs is headlining Slane because he is a global star with a huge fan base. But it’s also because he is literally the only show in town.
[ Country music singer Luke Combs confirmed to headline Slane Castle 2026Opens in new window ]
