The spark that ignited Mr. Luck & Ms. Doom, the Delines fourth record, came from a night in Dublin, when after a gig singer Amy Boone took songwriter/guitar player Willy Vlautin aside and said, “Listen man, you have to write me a straight up love song where no one dies and nothing goes wrong or I’m going to lose my mind.” When the tour ended, Vlautin holed up at home and went to work.
At the next Delines rehearsal he brought in Mr. Luck & Ms. Doom, maybe the most romantic Delines tune to date. It’s the story of two ragged misfits: a failed criminal and a depressive house cleaner who somehow hit the lottery in meeting each other. With that song the soul of the record was found: ragged couples on the run. Recording began at Bocce Studios with longtime collaborator John Morgan Askew. The record features Amy Boone’s lush, world worn voice, the cinematic production skills of Askew, and the horn and string arrangement of Delines keyboardist and trumpeter, Cory Gray. This is wide screen, CinemaScope, Delines at their best.
The 8-piece Midlands-based soul band Stone Foundation celebrated an incredible 25 years of success in 2023 with the release of the retrospective anthology ‘Standing In The Light’ through 100 Percent Records.
Their last four albums all charted UK Top 40 (Album Chart) and UK Top 10 (Independent Chart & also Vinyl Chart), including of course 2022’s ‘Outside Looking In’. ‘Standing In The Light’ is yet another big step forward for this constantly evolving band.
Known for their collaborative spirit and inclusive approach, the band team up regularly with Paul Weller who sings lead on a number of their songs. He has worked with them frequently across the last decade, on both the Stone Foundation catalogue and his own solo work.
Their last album, ‘Standing In The Light’ boasts an enviable list of collaborators from the best of British (Weller, Mick Talbot, Dr Robert, Graham Parker and more) to the finest American soul voices (Durand Jones, Melba Moore, Bettye LaVette, William Bell, Nolan Porter & more).
The band are big advocates of the 7” format, having had a string of #1 hits on the Vinyl Singles Chart making them one of the most successful artists on that chart in the 2010s.
Along the way they have always ploughed their own furrow and made their own luck, enjoying national airplay from BBC 6 Music, BBC Radio 2, receiving rave reviews from a huge range of publications, playing Glastonbury Festival and selling out headline shows at London’s Shepherd’s Bush Empire, Koko and the Electric Ballroom.
Stone Foundation have opened for Madness, The Specials, Jamiroquai, Mavis Staples and Paul Weller and are due to support Tom Jones and Grace Jones in the summer of 2024.
The band are established and 10 albums in, but never the establishment!
This show is strictly for audiences aged 18 and over.
If you have access needs, feel free to email Aoife at aoife@cqaf.com for more info—we’re happy to help!
BC Camplight (Brian Christinzio) isn’t just one of the most celebrated songwriters in UK independent music—he’s also one of the most captivating live performers you’ll ever witness. His shows are an electrifying mix of raw emotion, masterful musicianship, and an undeniable connection with his audience.
Hot off the success of his first Top 40 album, The Last Rotation of Earth, Christinzio has taken his breathtaking live performances to bigger audiences than ever before, culminating in a show-stopping television debut on Later… With Jools Holland.
BC Camplight’s live shows are unpredictable, intense, and deeply moving, reflecting his own journey of resilience and redemption. Originally from Philadelphia, he found creative rebirth in Manchester, crafting a series of albums that have been hailed as masterpieces by The Guardian and The Sunday Times. His music, a stunning blend of heart-wrenching lyricism and soaring melodies, comes alive on stage in a way that must be experienced firsthand.
This is more than just another gig—this is BC Camplight at his absolute peak. Don’t miss the chance to see one of the UK’s most critically acclaimed artists deliver a powerful, unmissable live performance in Belfast.
Keith James presents a haunting and immaculately crafted concert celebrating the songs of Nick Drake.
Nick Drake is one of the UK’s most revered singer-songwriters. He has given us timeless songs that shed all the tears of life within their fragile yet perfect lines. He recorded three cherished albums between 1969 and 1972, but was almost entirely unknown in his day.
After his tragic death in 1974 aged only 26, his music almost disappeared into obscurity. Now, thanks to a massive resurgence of interest and a worldwide re-evaluation of his genius, Nick Drake has become a national treasure.
Several meticulously compiled biographies look at every aspect of Nick’s life and music, throwing light on many shadowy corners of mystery and supposition.
Two decades have now passed since singer/guitarist Keith James first performed his stunningly beautiful series of Nick Drake concerts.
He was the first artist to bring this intriguingly fragile music to venues across the UK in a live concert form. The result was six years of highly acclaimed tours featuring over 1000 concerts in venues across the UK and Europe, including Glastonbury Festival.
“Musicians brave enough to make the music they really believe in. Keith James is one of these.” ~ Bob Harris
“A fresh and powerful approach to these wonderful songs” ~ Patrick Humphries (Nick Drake biographer)
Film Art Poetry Music Sculpture Street Art Literature Theatre.
Get to see more of Belfast and find out about its talented creative people!
Hop on board this Festival half-day bus tour developed by Creative Tours Belfast for a fun exploration of the best of Belfast’s vibrant arts and cultural scene! Journey across the city with your entertaining and knowledgeable tour guide to become acquainted with a plethora of talented and creative people connected with the streets and different districts of the city that you’ll pass through.
Discover many of the city’s arts centres, theatres, art galleries and music venues, see cool street artwork and public sculptures and listen to music and stories as we go.
See and hear about many great visual artists, writers, actors, directors and musicians who were born or spent time in different parts of Belfast:
– Successful visual artists- for example, The Array Collective, Colin Davidson and Rita Duffy
– Award-winning novelists, playwrights/scriptwriters and poets – includingAnna Burns, Seamus Heaney, C S Lewis, Marie Jones, Lisa McKee, and Owen McCafferty
– Famous film directors and actors – including Kenneth Brannagh, Liam Neeson, Jamie Dornan, Tara Lynne O’Neill and Frances Tomelty
– Musicians of our UNESCO City of Music from Van Morrison, James Galway and Ruby Murray to today’s rising stars!
The tour will start from the Cathedral Quarter and stop for four short visits in each of north, south, east and west Belfast, giving you a chance to see what’s on and to explore a bit. There’ll be additional opportunities for photos along the way.
A special performance will be arranged for tour guests at one of the four venues visited, and a light lunch will also be provided at Eastside Visitor Centre, beside C S Lewis Square.
Meet for 10.25am at the Black Box and we will join our bus by St Anne’s Cathedral after exploring Writer’s Square.The tour will last for three and a half hours, and we will return back to the Cathedral Quarter for 2pm.
DATE: Sunday 18th January 2026
START: 10.25am – the Black Box foyer
END:2pm: By St Anne’s Cathedral, Donegall St, Cathedral Quarter
This tour has received part funding from Belfast City Council under its Neighbourhood Tourism Investment Programme
Namaste Motherf*ckers is the new show from Cally Beaton (QI, Live at the Apollo) – a quick-witted, unexpected and unapologetic insight into life in midlife.
Combining Cally’s comedic and storytelling prowess with extracts from her provocative, stereotype-busting book of the same name, the show has at its heart her own story of radical reinvention – taking her from meetings in boardrooms to treading the boards, thanks to a chance conversation with the late, great Joan Rivers.
A funny show about a deadly serious subject, Namaste Motherf*ckers is a celebration of and for the female of the species. Invisible no more.
★★★★“SPRIGHTLY WIT AND CONSIDERABLE STORYTELLING PROWESS” The Scotsman
★★★★“ORIGINAL AND CLEVER” The Arts Desk – pick of the Edinburgh Fringe
“GRIPPING, PERCEPTIVE AND UPLIFTING” Chortle
“EXCITING AND HILARIOUS TALENT…SHE’S GOT IT” Time Out
This year, Grant-Lee Phillips will release his 12th solo album, the self-produced In the Hour of Dust.
It’s a work that doesn’t shy away from the big themes of contemporary life. “The mood on this album is contemplative,” says Phillips, “trying to find meaning in an age of confusion, feeling your way through the blinding dust of unreality.”
In the Hour of Dust is also a highly intimate affair; both in its musical presentation and the highly personal – often autobiographical – lyrics in the songs, all set, the songwriter admits, “against this larger discordant backdrop.”
Audiences first discovered Phillips’ thoughtful, literate songwriting in context of the rock band Grant Lee Buffalo, a trio which found success with the 1993 debut Fuzzy. The title track catapulted the group to international recognition. Grant Lee Buffalo followed up Fuzzy with 1994’s Mighty Joe Moon (an album featuring the modern rock hit “Mockingbirds”) etching a distinct mark, while transcending the era.
Beginning with his 2000 solo debut Ladies’ Love Oracle, Phillips opened another chapter in his career, as a folk- and Americana-focused artist crafting songs and stories rich with details and humanity. Phillips was then invited to join the cast of a burgeoning television series. The Gilmore Girls would enjoy lasting syndication and multi-generational embrace, introducing Phillips, “the Town Troubadour” to a new audience.
Phillips is often on the road, performing to eager fans throughout the US and overseas. With the release of In the Hour of Dust in September 2025, concert dates are planned for the U.S., UK, Europe and other regions to follow.
Reflects Phillips “I don’t see songs of love and songs of protest as being so far apart, really. It’s all about recognising the value of connection in a disconnected time.”
We are delighted to present AOIBHA as this year’s CQAF Artist in Residence. The last 12 months have seen AOIBHA begin to make a serious impact with a host of impressive support slots and a sold-out full band show.
A native of Co. Down, AOIBHA’s indie-folk textures pulse with a gothic energy that subtly echoes her love for dusky literary classics like Wuthering Heights and Jane Eyre.
AOIBHA’s music is woven with vivid imagery and soundscapes, drawing inspiration from Irish artists like Joshua Burnside and Lemoncello, whose sublime folk storytelling and haunting harmonies resonate deeply.
Details of AOIBHA’s festival slots and own headline show will be published here shortly.
“AOIBHA is a master at crafting music that exudes serenity… If there was ever music for late night listening while getting lost in your thoughts, this is it.” – Chordblossom
“The singer-songwriter’s lyrics are vulnerable but her sound is still 100% her own. This is only the beginning of AOIBHA’s journey…”–Hot Press
AOIBHA’S APPEARANCES AT CQAF 25
Guest of The Magic Numbers – Monday May 5
Guest of Luca Fogale – Tuesday May 6
Guest of Bernard Butler – Sunday May 11
Headline Show: The Harrison Hotel, Saturday May 10, 8.00pm
Tickets for Headline Show: https://cqaf.ticketsolve.com/shows/873672605/events
Radio 4 favourite, comedy legend, and ‘the 42nd best reason to love Britain’ (The Telegraph) JOHN SHUTTLEWORTH, is back with more hilarious stories and songs performed on his trusty Yamaha organ (with built-in auto accompaniment!) In RAISE THE OOF John celebrates 40 years in showbiz. Yes, it was 1985 when he met TV’s Clarinet Man – next door neighbour Ken Worthington who came last on New Faces in 73 (Tony Hatch crucified him!)
“When I met Ken he was eating a CurlyWurly” recalls John, “although initially I thought it was a packet of sparklers, so I gave him a wide berth”, and the rest, as they say, is hysterical!
“ Actually, I feel rather calm” muses John, “although after forty years and still no chart success, perhaps I should be slightly anxious. My wife Mary says I should get a proper job, but there’s not time – I’m about to retire! Besides, Comet – where I used to demonstrate audio equipment – no longer exists. As for the sweet factory in the Rotherham area where I worked as a security guard in the 1980’s – that’s now an Axe Throwing Centre. Oof!”
But I’m still posting off my songs (on cassette tape with Dolby so it’s not too hissy) to cutting edge pop acts like Chris Rea and the Lighthouse Family, plus I’m still being booked for nostalgic singalongs at the local hospice (for petrol money only) so we have every reason to celebrate my long and illustrious career. Do come along and join me in punching the air, and helping – in an orderly and controlled fashion – to RAISE THE OOF!
“His stand up is second to none, his timing is impeccable, and you can practically warm your hands on his good nature” The Guardian
“It remains a comic endeavour both bittersweet and laugh-out-loud funny”**** The Times February 2025
“A ludicrously compelling night out” Evening Standard
Sublime character comedy – the Guardian
Totally Unmissable – NME
This show is strictly for audiences aged 18 and over.
If you have access needs, feel free to email Aoife at aoife@cqaf.com for more info—we’re happy to help!
A love letter in song, Camille’s new show celebrates her dear friend Shane MacGowan, plus the work of Sinéad O’Connor, David Bowie, Radiohead, Nick Cave and more.
Performing with accompaniment from long-time collaborator Feargal Murray, Camille has created an intimate, heartfelt show capturing the honest response to those much loved and lost.
“Queen of the Edinburgh Festival” (BBC) and original star of Olivier Award-winning LaClique, Camille O’Sullivan enjoys a formidable reputation for her intensely dramatic interpretations of the songs of Brel, Cave, Waits, Bowie and more.
The multi-award-winning singer has stunned audiences around the world with her five-star sell-out performances, including at the Sydney Opera House, Royal Festival Hall, La Clique, Royal Albert Hall, Later With Jools Holland (BBC) and she won the coveted Herald Angel award for her RSC solo performance ‘The Rape of Lucrece’.
Dark, sexy, fierce, amusing and mesmerising, Camille transforms each song she performs into an intense, emotional, and theatrical experience. Expect joy and pure passion.
“When she sings it’s as though her breath is soaked in paraffin – one spark, and the whole room would ignite” ***** Daily Telegraph
“Ravishing, a superb performer and great singer… the star is her singing voice, a deep sultry instrument that might have been created to express desolate love” **** The Guardian
This show is strictly for audiences aged 18 and over.
If you have access needs, feel free to email Aoife at aoife@cqaf.com for more info—we’re happy to help!
Réalta, the dynamic Ulster-based Irish traditional group, will be performing on home ground for a special concert of traditional and contemporary tunes and songs.
Formed in Belfast in 2012, Réalta quickly established themselves as an exciting act on the Irish music scene, earning stellar reviews for their live performances and innovative approach to traditional melodies.
Irish Music Magazine described their debut Open The Door For Three as “A full-bodied pipe and whistle extravaganza” and summarised their follow-up album Clear Skies by writing “Réalta have grown bigger, bolder and braver and this is one of the best CDs to have come out of Ireland this year!”.
For their most recent release Thing of the Earth, Irish Music Magazine confirmed “Réalta have a sound all of their own – exciting, dynamic and addictive”.
Réalta have toured extensively throughout Europe, Asia and North America and their unique approach to the genre have made them a festival favourite. Featuring dual uilleann pipes, whistles, guitars, mandolin and bodhrán, the bands’ infectious energy, impressive musicianship, creativity and deep love for the music is evident throughout every performance.
Listeners can expect to journey through energetic reels, rhythmic jigs, soulful airs and thought-provoking songs… blending words and melodies from sources both old and new.
If you have access needs, feel free to email Aoife at aoife@cqaf.com for more info—we’re happy to help!
Dublin’s avant-garde punk sensation Meryl Streek brings his hard-hitting mix of protest, spoken word, and electronic influences to Belfast for a powerful live show at Ulster Sports Club.
Following the success of his debut album, ‘796’, which confronted institutional abuses in Ireland, Meryl Streek released his second album, ‘Songs For The Deceased’, on October 25, 2024. His music explores themes of injustice, corruption, and working-class struggles, making for a raw and uncompromising live experience.
Renowned for live performances that are both confrontational and exhilarating, Meryl Streek’s shows are described as a “weird blend, but worth listening to if you want something you’ve never heard before.”– Kerrang
“His biting, coarse Dublin delivery combined with a convergence of electronic textures and punk ethos creates an unforgettable live experience.” – Farout Magazine
This show is strictly for audiences aged 18 and over.
If you have access needs, feel free to email Aoife at aoife@cqaf.com for more info—we’re happy to help!
PULP guitarist MARK WEBBER gives his unique perspective on being a fan and then being a member of the band!
When Mark Webber discovered Pulp as a teenage music fan in 1985, the band was on first-name terms with most of their limited audience. Over the next few years, Mark began to help out with stage sets and light shows, eventually becoming the group’s tour manager and running the fan club. Having been called upon to play guitar and keyboards at live shows, he was asked to join the band in 1995 and appears on the albums Different Class, This is Hardcore and We Love Life.
When Pulp went on hiatus in 2002, Mark devoted his time to curating avant-garde cinema and published several books on the subject. He’s since been part of both Pulp reunion tours and remains in the band as it embarks on more concerts in 2025.
This incredible journey —from fandom to bandom – provides the unique perspective of “I’m With Pulp, Are You?”. In it Mark gathers material from his astonishingly extensive collection of ephemera and objects accumulated over the last five decades.
The book combines images and reminiscences to chronicle an illustrated history of Pulp, told from the inside. It contains photographs, flyers, record covers, set lists, badges, posters, press clippings, and merchandise, alongside masses of promotional material from one of Britain’s most beloved bands.
“I’m With Pulp, Are You?” also features a foreword by Jarvis Cocker, and newly commissioned essays by music writers Simon Reynolds and Luke Turner.
Lisa Hannigan, Gemma Hayes and Paul Noonan have always individually danced between genres as artists. Collaboration is part of the makeup of each of their careers.
Three artists who have predominantly been centre-stage in their careers, while also experiencing the other parts and spaces and instruments that populate a band; Lisa, Gemma and Paul will come together to collaborate and share their stage and their songs with each other.
We’re delighted to announce Conchur White as special guest.
This show is strictly for audiences aged 18 and over.
If you have access needs, feel free to email Aoife at aoife@cqaf.com for more info—we’re happy to help!
Beneath the painted hues and infinite prairie skies of Saskatoon — a city in the heart of Canada — lies a soulful, creative spirit that proves there’s much more to the so-called ‘fly-over states’ than grassland and grain silos.
Katie Tupper, an indie R&B musician, embodies that spirit and is determined to show there’s an entire world of boundary-pushing music at work within the often overlooked region.
Tupper’s two EPs of heartland soul – 2022’s Towards The End, and 2023’s Where To Find Me – have amassed 11 million streams world wide, a JUNO Award nomination, the praise of tastemakers like Zane Lowe, and international radio spins from BBC 6Music (UK), FIP (France), and CBC (Canada).
More recently, Tupper’s covers of everything from Hall & Oates to Jazmine Sullivan have gone viral on social media earning nods from superstars like SZA and Joe Jonas.
Katie Tupper returns with “Outside The Gate,” a devastatingly beautiful track about facing the reality of how you show up for someone you love. Reflecting on the song, Katie says, “I think more people need to feel allowed to admit that we will never be perfect in our relationships even when they are everything we’ve wanted.”
And admit she does, with each poignant repetition of “I think I’m broken,” hitting deeper every time, giving a raw and beautiful testament to love’s imperfections.
This show is strictly for audiences aged 18 and over.
If you have access needs, feel free to email Aoife at aoife@cqaf.com for more info—we’re happy to help!
“I Wouldn’t Say It If It Wasn’t True – Songs, Stories and Surprises”
Steve Wynn, leader and founder of the Dream Syndicate, will be touring the UK in May in support of I Wouldn’t Say It If It Wasn’t True, his debut book, a memoir for Jawbone Press as well as Make It Right, his first solo album since 2010.
The book details the winding path from growing up a music fan and pre-teen bandleader in Los Angeles through the formation and ultimate dissolution of the Dream Syndicate at the end of their first era in 1988.
There are stops along the way for tales of cross-country greyhound trips to track down Alex Chilton to wild, off-the-rails tours with U2 and R.E.M. and the epic heart-of-darkness making of the band’s controversial second album Medicine Show and plenty more.
The album is a similarly, reflective and intimately revealing collection, written and recorded in tandem with the writing of I Wouldn’t Say It If It Wasn’t True.
Wynn promises a one-man show blending songs from and inspired by the book along with a narrative structure of readings from the book and storytelling, adjunctly extrapolated from those passages.
Fans can expect a selection of evergreens and rarities from the Dream Syndicate’s 80’s catalogue along with illuminating covers and reflective numbers from the new album as well, all adding up to one tall tale of a past revisited.
Steve says, “I don’t see this show as a stodgy reading or as a random selection of songs but rather a tiny play of sorts, a way of giving a flesh and blood companion to the book. I’m looking for that magic place where, say, Lenny Bruce and Spaulding Grey and Ray Davies and Bob Dylan and maybe Hedwig might meet in a dimly lit cabaret on the back streets of Hollywood. I’ve never done this kind of show before but if I can hit all those markers, I’ll be happy.”
Steve Wynn will be selling and signing copies of I Wouldn’t Say It If It Wasn’t True (book) and Make It Right (CD/LP) after every show.
This show is strictly for audiences aged 18 and over.
If you have access needs, feel free to email Aoife at aoife@cqaf.com for more info—we’re happy to help!
Anika a.k.a Annika Henderson is a hybrid artist. The former journalist made a name for herself in the electronic music scene, with her experimental sound collages, confrontational texts and unique way of performing live solo.
Her breakthrough came in 2010 with the release of the cult-hit, experimental LP, Anika (Stones Throw /Invada), which she recorded with Bristol band Beak, a wholly unplanned affair, which began her ongoing investigation into the music, film, poetry and arts scenes. One of her most know songs remains “I Go To Sleep,” a cover of The Kinks’ 1965 classic.
The debut was followed by “Change” in 2021, an album full of heightened frustration buoyed by guarded optimism spread across nine tracks.
She is founding member of Mexican psych-band, Exploded View (Sacred Bones) and has worked across the arts with the likes of punk legends Gudrun Gut and Beate Bartel (Malaria!, Liaisons Dangereuses), Tricky (Massive Attack), Jim Jarmusch, Soundwalk Collective, Shackleton, Clark (Warp), PBDY (Brainfeeder), performance artist Melanie Jame Wolf, n.b.k gallery Berlin, Poet Ricardo Domeneck, computer programmer Raoul Sanders/A.I (The Writing Robot. 2017), fashion house Jil Sander and light artist Philipp Geist.
Her latest releases include the hopeful pop-indie album, ‘Change’ (2021), a video art experiment called ‘Anika – Alone In The City’ in collaboration with n.b.k gallery in Berlin, and her guitar, synth driven psychedelic experimental live album Eat Liquid.
She has performed extensively since 2009, with and without band, in renowned venues and festivals across the globe, such as the Portishead-curated All Tomorrows Parties in New Jersey and London, Moog Festival, alongside the likes of Suicide, Tangerine Dream, Silver Apples, and Moebius, Mexico City’s Normal Festival, Tehran’s Tadaex, Berghain, Atonal festival, SKIF St Petersberg, and WWWX Tokyo among others.
She interweaves dub, post-punk, and psychedelic, with shadows of dnb and a strong emphasis on the voice. Henderson operates as a writer, composer, musician, DJ, photographer, radio host and video-director.
This show is strictly for audiences aged 18 and over.
If you have access needs, feel free to email Aoife at aoife@cqaf.com for more info—we’re happy to help!
Yukee’s Garden Party: The Live Show involves live performances of original Yukee songs from the hit CBeebies series, as well as interactive storytelling and simple musical games designed to deliver fundamental music learning and foster positive early connections with music.
At the top of the show lead performer Neve introduces herself to the audience as Yukee’s friend, before our audience is taken on an adventure through Yukee’s musical garden to help Neve (and Stripes!) put on a rockin’ show at the Sunhouse! Along the way, Neve interacts with characters from the show, and engages with on-screen animation and visual cues, helping our audience to immerse themselves in the world of Yukee.
Join us in Larkin’s Square for a family fun day celebrating international solidarity for workers’ rights.
Following the March & Rally departing from Writers’ Square at 12.30 there will be free drop in art workshops, art exhibitions and music from 2pm, including Villers and the Villains, Beyond Skin, CQAF artists, DJ Judas and Chidambaram Samba band.
A full programme of events starts April 22nd and will include a walking tour, film screenings and talks on the trade union movement with its historic connection to Belfast.
Created to commemorate the 20 plus years that have passed since DC-based post-hardcore band Fugazi’s last live appearance (4th November 2002, at London’s Forum), the incediary WE ARE FUGAZI FROM WASHINGTON D.C. comprises crowd-sourced, fan-recorded live shows and rare archive footage of Fugazi curated by Joe Gross, Joseph Pattisall and Jeff Krulik.
Explicitly billed as a “non-documentary”, the film pays tribute to Fugazi’s prowess as a live act – for old fans to remember and for a new generation to discover what they missed. This unique archival assemblage celebrates the fans and their cameras, as much as the band itself – a collision/collusion of the ephemeral moment on stage, and the moments captured on camera.(Photograph: Shawn Scallen)
“Fan-sourced film captures legendary US punks in all their glory!
Even plucked from the archives, these are the best gigs you’ll see in 2025″ Tara Brady, IT Review
“The film shows that live music can be a weapon for change. It’s hard to imagine a better cinematic way to pay homage to the band. Smart, artful, and alive — a remarkable cinematic representation of a band that could only be Fugazi.” LOUDER THAN WAR
Profits from the event will be donated to a local charity
Drunk Women Solving Crime are coming back to Belfast with their chart-topping true crime comedy podcast.
Join hosts Hannah George and Taylor Glenn, plus their special guest, as they ‘solve’ a true crime case, aided and abetted by a few glasses of fizz, as well as seeking justice for your crimes too.
Past show guests have included the likes of Katherine Ryan, Joanne McNally, Shaparak Khorsandi, Lisa McGee and Rosie Jones, and a fantastic time is always had by all.
They were last here in 2023 with two sell out shows, so book now to avoid disappointment!
This show is strictly for audiences aged 18 and over.
If you have access needs, feel free to email Aoife at aoife@cqaf.com for more info—we’re happy to help!
Growing up in Los Angeles, Jerron Paxton would sit with an ear by the radio, eagerly absorbing the nuances and history of Black American traditional music that connect him to his ancestral roots in the South.
A songwriter, inheritor of tradition, and a walking, talking jukebox, Paxton approaches his craft with equal part wit and reverence, with a knack for leg-pulling and cracking wise.
Things Done Changed is an album of original songs that sound beamed in from nearly a century ago, when jazz and blues were performed as a means of both personal and cultural survival. Lick by lick, Paxton builds a bridge between generations gone and generations to come, singing the heartaches and joys of the past and present.
This show is strictly for audiences aged 18 and over.
If you have access needs, feel free to email Aoife at aoife@cqaf.com for more info—we’re happy to help!
Reared on diet of Rhythm & Blues, Funk, Jazz, Pop and Ska, The Tibbs bring a unique blend of garage soul that could be traced back to the Detroit and Philly sounds of the ’60s and ’70s. A retro style infused with a distinctive Tibbs formula.
The Tibbs originally took off in 2012 – fronted by the amazing Elsa Bekman – covering a lesser trodden path, combining special soul classics with rare beat instrumentals. Their increasing popularity quickly led to a natural desire to expand their repertoire, beyond the confines of others’ inspirational endeavours towards their own soulful creations.
The resulting EP Cleaned Out debuted in 2014. Later that year, the German funk and soul label Tramp Records released their debut single – Footprints in the Sand / Cleaned Out – delivering deserved international airplay for The Tibbs. Two years later, famous Italian label Record Kicks released The Tibbs’ first LP, Takin’ Over.
Though the talent was obvious much earlier, the release of Takin’ Over delivered the band far richer rewards. Playing sold-out venues in both Milan and Frankfurt, The Tibbs’ profile rose further still with wonderful festival performances in Germany and Hungary, followed by a successful soldout tour of Spain.
After some deliberation, in late 2018 Elsa decided to follow her heart and focus on a solo career. The Tibbs duly began their search for a truly worthy successor, bringing astonishing vocalist Roxanne Hartog and the band together for the first time. With a selection of incredible new tunes and an album (Another Shot Fired) drawing fantastic reviews, The Tibbs played sold-out shows in The Netherlands, Italy, Germany and Spain.
In January 2024 their latest album Keep It to Yourself came out, a true tour de force that left listeners awe-inspired, foot-tapping and heart-soaring. On this 12-track album The Tibbs once again prove that the passionate sounds of the past can have a fresh and vibrant place in the music of today.
Whether you’re a devoted soul aficionado or new to the genre, just get ready for a musical journey that will revive your spirit! Keep It to Yourself was selected by Craig Charles for his ‘Best of 2024 Show’ on BBC Radio 6.
The Tibbs are: Roxanne Hartog – vocals
Henk Kemkes – guitar
Anton Titsing – Hammond / keys
Michael Willemsen – bass
Bas de Vries – drums
Berd Ruttenberg – baritone sax
Frank Stolwijk – tenor sax
Siebe Posthuma de Boer – trumpet
‘Every track blazes with the ferocity of a close-knit band of players in perfect sync.’Uncut Magazine (UK)
‘The Tibbs deliver a Vintage Soul Scorcher.’Clash Magazine (UK)
‘The Tibbs have raised the bar to where it was not thought possible: Roxanne Hartog’s voice soars over a Hammond organ and a breathtaking brass section, the bass grooves like never before.’ ****1/2Rolling Stone Magazine
‘It’s a TUNE!!!’Craig Charles, BBC Radio 6
This show is strictly for audiences aged 18 and over.
If you have access needs, feel free to email Aoife at aoife@cqaf.com for more info—we’re happy to help!
Córas Trio presents a live performance to film exploring the intricate lives of natural systems. Through live music, dynamic visuals, and interactive soundscapes, the trio transforms organic processes – shifting landscapes, and microbial networks – into a sensory experience. Their performance blends electronic and acoustic textures, mirroring the rhythms and chaos of ecosystems in flux. Vibrant projections pulse with sound, revealing unseen connections within nature. Inspired by the resilience and fragility of our environment, Córas Trio invites audiences to witness nature’s hidden harmonies.
Córas Trio – Kevin McCullagh: fiddle/electronics, Paddy McKeown: guitar/electronics, and Conor McAuley: drums, question what it means to be an Irish person playing improvised music today. Their sound comprises traditional melodies that weave in and out of compelling textures, and foregrounds fiddle, guitar, and percussion with transcendental electronics; suspending elements of collective free improvisation with proper seisiún style playfulness.
Take a walk on the dark side! Join Alternative Ulstours’ ‘Master of the Macabre’ Andrew Johnston on a devilishly informative and shockingly entertaining walking tour of Belfast’s Cathedral Quarter.
Dare you stalk the streets and uncover the grisly secrets of this historic area of the city?
• The day the Albert Clock stopped… dead!
• A ‘bioterrorism’ scare at Belfast’s mail HQ
• Sailortown’s souls that cannot rest
• ‘Spirits’ uncorked at Belfast’s oldest wine merchant
• George and Nora: a love-and-death story
• A harrowing outrage on Little York Street
• Bloody murder in Belfast’s ‘house of ill fame’
• Body snatching in Belfast – a ghoulish business!
• The spectre of Belfast’s music hall ‘Solid Man’
• The Frankenstein Chronicles in the Cathedral Quarter
• Floggings, hangings and beheadings in the centre of town
• Fleeing the flames in the original Belfast Castle
• The forgotten bones beneath Belfast streets
Please note:
• The walking tour starts at the Albert Memorial Clock on Queen’s Square in the Cathedral Quarter in Belfast city centre, where your guide will be waiting for you
• Please arrive 10 minutes before the scheduled start time
• The tour will last three hours and cover around two miles on mainly flat, even ground
• The route is fully accessible, but please inform us in advance of any mobility issues
• The tour ends at St George’s Church on High Street in the Cathedral Quarter in Belfast city centre
• The tour will go ahead in all weathers, so please dress accordingly and stay hydrated
• There are public toilets near the start and end points, and we can make a toilet stop approximately halfway through the tour if required
• There will also be an optional refreshment stop approximately halfway through the tour (refreshments at own cost)
• Well-behaved dogs are welcome on the tour
• Your guide is Level 4-certified and a Visit Belfast industry partner • The tour is fully insured through Tour Guides NI
Very important:
• The tour is open to all ages, but parental guidance is advised due to the graphic nature of some content.
Take a leisurely stroll on a Sunday afternoon to find out a little more about some of the historic pubs of the Cathedral Quarter and Belfast city centre.
Each pub, from Kelly’s Cellars to the Dirty Onion, The Duke of York to White’s Tavern, and The Morning Star to McHugh’s has fascinating tales and links to our city’s history that will be teased out. You’ll learn why several establishments claim the city’s ‘oldest pub’ title, which of them is in fact the oldest tavern, and what precisely the ‘oldest’ claims of some of the others relate to!
Exploring the oldest part of Belfast town before it became a city in 1888, you’ll hear about early merchants and importers, where secret societies met, the pick-up points for mail coaches, old jails, former whiskey warehouses, newspapers of long ago, and more.
The tour will start from outside Kelly’s Cellars at 2.00pm. The tour will end at 3.30pm outside McHugh’s, where you may choose to stay on to enjoy a drink or coffee and perhaps an afternoon traditional music session.
The tour will cover up to 1.5 miles and will take place whatever the weather, so please come prepared. No refreshments are included as part of the tour ticket.
The tour has been developed and was delivered by Dolores Vischer, a Green Badge qualified tour guide, through her company Creative Tours Belfast.
Hit the North Street Art Festival returns to Union Street and Kent Street with some of the world’s finest artists. Artists this year include – Hera, Taxis, Ajax Piper, My Dog Sighs, Jack Lack, Slim Safont, Jo Caslin, Jack Lack, Ona Salvador, Philth, Roo, Sky High, Jo Caslin, Asbestos, Danleo, Ed Hicks, Fesa, Friz, Holly Pereia, KVLR, Wee Nuls and loads more.
And don’t forget to check out our fringe programme on the Seedhead Arts website where there’s more workshops, tours, film screenings, lectures and LOADS of parties.
This show has been cancelled due to unforeseen circumstances.
A founder member of some of the finest bands to emerge from Belfast in the past fifteen years (Sea Pinks, Girls Names), Neil Brogan has been quietly putting out home recorded solo recordings since 2020. Last summer he went into a studio in Belfast with a three piece band, (including ex Sea Pinks friends Davey Agnew and Gary Cummins) and knocked out a new record in a day.
That record, “Neil Brogan Band”, will be released on April 4th 2025 and Strange Victory, in association with CQAF, is delighted to host the Belfast launch show on May 3rd with the excellent Daisy Chain in support.
Celebrating the iconic MTV Unplugged series of the 90s, where legendary grunge bands like Nirvana, Alice In Chains and Pearl Jam stripped down their powerful & distortion-heavy sound to showcase their raw acoustic talents, join Sister Ghost + friends for a night of classic MTV Unplugged reimaginings. Think candles, flowers, knitted cardigans and the stories behind the songs!
This rare and intimate show will be hosted by Shannon of Sister Ghost (fresh from supporting Snow Patrol on their recent Irish arena shows) and will also include an exclusive unplugged set from her debut album Beyond The Water.
“Beyond The Water is a portrait of the artist as a twenty-something queer woman from a tiny village in rural Ireland – it finds her trying to break past the confines of her hometown, and push at the boundaries of ambition. A hugely accomplished debut.” – Hot Press Magazine
“One of the most talented songwriters this country has produced in a long, long time” – Stephen McCauley, BBC Radio Ulster
“Loud and unapologetic blasts of feminist empowerment” – Louder Magazine
Author John Higgs joins us in conversation about his new book.
On screen, Doctor Who is a story of monsters, imagination and mind-expanding adventure. But the off-screen story is equally extraordinary – a tale of failed monks, war heroes, 1960s polyamory and self-sabotaging broadcasting executives. From the politics of fandom to the inner struggles of the BBC, thousands of people have given part of themselves – and sometimes, too much of themselves – to bring this unlikeliest of folk heroes to life.
This is a story of change, mystery and the importance of imaginary characters in our lives. Able to evolve and adapt more radically than any other fiction, Doctor Who has acted as a mirror to more than six decades of social, technological and cultural change while always remaining a central fixture of the British imagination.
John Higgs is the author of several bestselling books including ‘The KLF’, ‘Live and Let Die: Bond, The Beatles and British Psyche’, ‘Watling Street’ and ‘William Blake v The World’.
‘Absolutely wonderful. The book I’ve been waiting to read since I was ten years old. Full of surprising and piercing insights . . . The first thing I’ve come across that absolutely nails the extraordinary nature of the cultural phenomenon that is Doctor Who’ JEREMY DYSON
If you have access needs, feel free to email Aoife at aoife@cqaf.com for more info—we’re happy to help!
Róisín Lanigan is an editor and writer based in London and Belfast. Her work has appeared in i-D, VICE, The Atlantic, New Statesman, The Fence and Prospect, amongst other publications. She was longlisted for the Curtis Brown First Novel Prize in 2019, and won the Blue Pencil Agency First Novel Award in 2020.
I Want to Go Home But I’m Already There is her first novel.
Renting is a nightmare.
Áine should be feeling happy with her life. She’s just moved in with Elliot. Their new flat is in an affluent neighbourhood, surrounded by bakeries, yoga studios and organic vegetable shops. They even have a garden. And yet, from the moment they move in, Áine can’t shake the sense that there’s something not quite right about the place…
It’s not just the humourless estate agent and nameless landlord: it’s the chill that seeps through the draughty windows; the damp spreading from the cellar door; the way the organic fruit and veg never lasts as long as it should. And most of all, it’s the upstairs neighbours, whose very presence makes peaceful coexistence very difficult indeed.
The longer Áine spends inside the flat – pretending to work from home; dissecting messages from the friends whose lives seem to have moved on without her – the less it feels like home. And as Áine fixates on the cracks in the ceiling, it becomes harder to ignore the cracks in her relationship with Elliott…
Multi-award-winning ‘magnificent Fringe Legends’ (Time Out) are back. And we’re totally fine! Actually all things considered, we’re ok.
Feeling alright. Thriving, even? That’s a bit far, but we have learnt some folk songs. We’ve got into folk recently and it’s been really helpful. Come and sing some folk songs with us! A swift 60 minutes of classic folk followed by a trip to the bar and then a singaround. Because we need a drink, don’t we? But we’re doing OK.
‘Spine-tingling from the first number’ ★★★★★ Telegraph
‘Few companies make shows that are so consistently, outrageously fun*’ (Guardian). *fun not guaranteed
This show runs at 60 minutes, and is followed by a chance to continue singing* and drinking** together in the performance space. Please join us after the show for the singaround if you would like to.
On Bank Holiday weekend, Sunday May 4th, Belfast Underground/CQAF take over the Deers Head Music Hall with the Belfast Legend Iain McCready , one half of the famous Sugar Sweet duo , digging through 30 years of vinyl House Classics for your listening pleasure.
Support comes from Belfast Underground Records Head Honcho Gary “ Dilly “ Dillon , Eamon Beagon & Marty McAllister. Expect to hear Era defining House Tunes from the mid 80s to the present day.
This show is strictly for audiences aged 18 and over.
If you have access needs, feel free to email Aoife at aoife@cqaf.com for more info—we’re happy to help!
To celebrate the launch of their acclaimed new album “Crescent Nights”, The 4 Of Us return to CQAF to perform songs from their latest release, as well as familiar classics from an extensive back catalogue.
Hailing from Newry, Northern Ireland, The 4 Of Us has been captivating audiences for over three decades with their soulful melodies and compelling lyrics. With brothers Brendan and Declan Murphy at the helm, The 4 Of Us has left an indelible mark on the Irish music scene.
Their journey began in the late ’80s, and since then, they’ve evolved into one of Ireland’s most beloved and enduring musical acts. Known for their distinctive sound that seamlessly blends rock, folk, and pop influences, The 4 Of Us has produced a string of hits that have become anthems for fans across generations.
‘As well-crafted and evocative as anything they’ve done before’– The Irish Times
This show is strictly for audiences aged 18 and over.
If you have access needs, feel free to email Aoife at aoife@cqaf.com for more info—we’re happy to help!
Formed in 1979 on the borders of Mali and Algeria, Tinariwen are world renowned as pioneers of the assouf style (“nostalgia” in tamashek). They address Tuareg people’s preoccupations in songs that mix traditional West African and Arab music with blues, folk and other influences.
Tinariwen singlehandedly invented a guitar style that has captured the world’s imagination. They call it ishumar or assouf. The rest of the planet has come to know it as the Tuareg blues. Its music that is imbued with sorrow and longing but it’s also music for forgetting our cares and for dancing. Far more than just a rock band, Tinariwen are ambassadors for their people and a way of life in tune with the natural world that is under threat as never before. Their message has never sounded more urgent and compelling than it does now.
Since gaining international recognition in the early 2000s, they have played more than 1100 shows around the world and released nine studio albums, three of them nominated for a Grammy, including Tassili, which won the award for Best World Music album in 2012.
“To say their music is captivating is underplaying it massively; it pulls you in and takes you on a desert journey, the lilting blues trance and the interplay between guitars and bass, percussion and vocals all creating a sensuous and pleasingly hazy mood.” – Louder Than War
This show is strictly for audiences aged 18 and over.
If you have access needs, feel free to email Aoife at aoife@cqaf.com for more info—we’re happy to help!
A rock’n’roll sensation from the word go, Danish-Brazilian The Courettes are back with their fourth and best album to date – The Soul Of… The Fabulous Courettes. This time, they’re bigger, wider and deeper than ever before as they add more to the blistering ramalama that’s seen them cause pandemonium across the venues, festivals and airwaves of the UK, Europe, USA and Japan.
Hitting the sweet spot that straddles garage rock, girl groups, doowop harmonies, heartache and all points in between, here The Courettes build on the momentum of predecessor ‘Back In Mono’ with a collection of songs that opens up their sonic scope while confronting dark, emotional matter to reveal ‘The Soul Of The Fabulous Courettes’.
Having evolved with each album release, The Soul Of… The Fabulous Courettes draws inspiration from many of the duo’s numerous idols that have only previously been hinted at. From the glorious opening beats and stabbing fuzz honks of ‘You Woo Me’ to the closing emotional tugs of ‘For Your Love’ via ‘SHAKE!’’s fuzzed-up urgency and ‘California’’s celebratory warmth, The Courettes have broadened their sound with an increased musical instrumentation and overall sophistication that’s evident in both their sound and songwriting.
“The Soul Of… The Fabulous Courettes blends two things,” explains Flavia. “First, of course, are the nods to the soul music and especially Motown, which is pop music the way we like it. But I think for the first time, lyrically, we actually open up to some deeper topics. It’s not disguised as teenage heartache songs anymore.”
For all that, The Soul Of… The Fabulous Courettes is an album aimed as much for what’s below the neck as above it, for this is an album that dances through the darkness to celebrate the joy that is living. “Life is so fragile,” smiles Flavia. “But what are you supposed to do? I’d rather dance.” And what better album to do that to?
This show is strictly for audiences aged 18 and over.
If you have access needs, feel free to email Aoife at aoife@cqaf.com for more info—we’re happy to help!
We’re delighted to present UK Rap royalty Farma G (Taskforce) presenting acclaimed new album To Kill a Butterfly on High Focus Records.
Joined by an amazing supporting cast of Belfast Groove Collective, Quinncidental, Chunk Funk and Militant Vinylist, the night will also feature a freestyle competition Farma G’s Five Word Freestyle with a £200 cash prize and meal for 2 (Frankie’s Lasagneria).
Join Ghouls on Film for a spellbinding 8mm screening of Mario Bava’s gothic masterpiece! Witness Barbara Steele’s iconic dual role in this haunting tale of witchcraft and vengeance. A rare chance to see this horror classic in all its grainy, celluloid glory. One night only—don’t miss it.
Nelofer Pazira-Fisk discusses her experience completing her late husband’s book on Middle Eastern politics, his legacy as a journalist and shares her reflections on how Western mainstream media reports on the Israel-Palestine conflict.
Nelofer Pazira-Fisk is an award-winning Afghan-Canadian author, journalist and filmmaker. She was based in Beirut for fifteen years working alongside her late husband, Robert Fisk. She reported for Canadian television and radio as well as UK and Canadian newspapers from Iraq, Afghanistan, Turkey, Egypt and Syria.
In 2001, she starred in the film Kandahar, based on her real-life story and has directed and produced several films including Return to Kandahar (2003), Act of Dishonour (2010), and This is Not a Movie (2019). Nelofer’s 2006 book, A Bed of Red Flowers: In Search of My Afghanistan, won the Drainie-Taylor Biography Prize.
‘Robert left me and the world his legacy of accurate reporting and being very truthful, honest and courageous to say it and speak it in the face of power’
CQ Bazaar returns to CQAF with a feast of delights in (where else?!) the Common Market. An eclectic mix of DJs, Independent record labels, second-hand vinyl, vintage clothes, antiques and Retro furniture. The best art, design and crafts.
Common Market Bar and food vendors are open during the market hours. Come and treat your eyes, ears, mouth and pockets.
Presented by QFT, CQAF and Source Magazine. Martin Parr joins us for a Q&A following the screening.
Since the 1970s, English photographer Martin Parr has held up a sometimes tender, sometimes critical and always mischievous mirror to our times, forcing us to take a hard look at how consumer society has shaped our lives. Discover the maverick behind some of the most iconic images of the past century on an intimate and exclusive road trip across England with the uncompromising Parr, whose subjects, frames and colours have revolutionised contemporary photography.
One of the most controversial photographers of his time, Martin Parr’s images often have the power to both amuse and leave us ever so slightly uncomfortable, caught between laughter and the uneasy recognition of ourselves in his uncompromising portrait of consumer society.
Though he’s now celebrated, collected and exhibited worldwide, Parr’s early work did not find an easy public and was highly criticized for trivializing the working class. Yet, in retrospect, perhaps he was just observing what we often overlook – forcing it into the spotlight as an essential topic of discussion. I Am Martin Parr is the definitive portrait of an extraordinary photographer who revolutionized contemporary photography by inventing a political, humanist and accessible photographic language.
Join us as we bring Paul McVeigh’s BBC Radio 4 short story collection, I Hear You, to life on stage. The collection features three standalone stories alongside The Circus—a ten-part series set in Cliftonville Circus, North Belfast, where ten unique voices take centre stage.
In this one-of-a-kind fusion of literature, radio, and theatre, acclaimed actors Tony Flynn (Big Man, Blue Lights), Michael Condron (Coronation Street, Say Nothing), and Abigail McGibbon (Ballywalter, Blue Lights) will perform their radio-recorded stories live, immersing you in the world of The Circus.
And for the first time, Paul McVeigh himself will take the stage to share the inspirations behind his stories.
Paul’s short stories have been in anthologies, journals and newspapers, read onBBC Radio 3, 4 and 5, RTE Radio, as well as Sky ARTS. His ten-part short story series, The Circus, aired on BBC Radio Ulster, BBC Radio Foyle and BBC Radio 4. He co-founded London Short Story Festival and has edited three anthologies. His collection, I hear You, was published in March 2025. His debut novel, The Good Son, won The Polari First Novel Prize and The McCrae Literary Award and his writing has been translated into eight languages.
****THIS EVENT HAS BEEN POSTPONED TO MONDAY 5TH MAY 2025****
All original ticketholders have been notified
Three-time Edinburgh Fringe Best Show nominee, Josie Long tries out ideas and hopes for the best in preparation for a full show next year, but please be reassured that you are in the safe hands of an accomplished professional.
‘Idealism and irrepressible fun are never far from the surface when Long stakes to the stage’ (Guardian). ****
This show is strictly for audiences aged 18 and over.
If you have access needs, feel free to email Aoife at aoife@cqaf.com for more info—we’re happy to help!
We’re seriously excited about this. The Magic Numbers comprise of two pairs of siblings (Romeo and Michele Stodart, Sean and Angela Gannon) who are known for their unique harmonies, melodic hooks, songwriting craftsmanship and timeless sound.
Their Mercury Prize-nominated self-titled debut album was released in 2005 to outstanding critical acclaim, and contained top ten hit singles such as ‘Forever Lost’, ‘Love Me Like You’ and ‘Love is a Game’. It went on to sell over a million copies worldwide, making them one of the nation’s best-loved bands.
They have earned a reputation for their exciting and uplifting live performances, leading them to tour the world, building a loyal fan base, as well as supporting the likes of Neil Young, Brian Wilson, Radiohead, The Flaming Lips, The Who, U2, Elbow and Bright Eyes amongst many others. The Magic Numbers have released five successful albums to date, and are currently working on new music.
The band have also become known for their collaborations with a diverse range of artists over the years – from Romeo writing and producing songs for the late Jane Birkin, Natalie Imbruglia, Ren Harvieu to co- writing ‘Close your eyes’ with the Chemical Brothers for their Grammy-Award-winning album ‘Push The Button’, and producing Billy Bragg’s most recent album. His sister, Michele Stodart has released three critically acclaimed solo albums, and is also an award-winning artist and collaborator.
The Magic Numbers’ outstanding musicianship, blood harmonies and skilfully crafted songs, make them a truly unique, exciting and unmissable live band. They continue to tour the world building their audiences and explore new ground in the studio together producing albums.
This show is strictly for audiences aged 18 and over.
If you have access needs, feel free to email Aoife at aoife@cqaf.com for more info—we’re happy to help!
Declared “the coolest rock star in the world right now,” by UNCUT magazine, Arooj Aftab has earned her position at the vanguard of creative music for her embrace of risk and nonconformity.
In 2024, she released her fourth solo album, Night Reign (Verve), to universal acclaim, earning a Grammy nomination for Best Alternative Jazz Album, while the song “Raat Ki Rani” was tabbed for Best Global Music Performance. The album expands on the musical universe Aftab has created over the years. Night Reign features an all-star cast of musicians (Cautious Clay, Vijay Iyer, Elvis Costello, James Franceis, Moor Mother, Joel Ross), united beneath the steady, brilliant hand of the queen of the night.
As put by the Wall Street Journal, “[Night Reign’s] beauty is self-evident, and it stands on its own” which helps explain its inclusion across so many Best of 2024 album lists. Night Reign’s predecessor, Vulture Prince, ushered Aftab into the cultural zeitgeist, including a place on President Barack Obama’s Summer 2021 playlist. Recognition for the record propelled her to a Best New Artist Grammy nomination in 2022 and a win for the song “Mohabbat.”
The following year she collaborated with Vijay Iyer and Shahzad Ismaily on a “masterclass in space,” the improvisational Love in Exile (Verve 2023), also Grammy nominated and winner of a 2023 Edison Jazz award.
Aftab spent her adolescent years in Lahore, Pakistan, the birthplace of her music-loving parents. Her viral cover of Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah” at age 18 aided in her passage to study jazz at Berklee College of Music in Boston, while Brooklyn, New York would be her next and most fertile workshop for creation of her genre-defying music.
Over the last few years, she has delivered “rapturous performances” at major venues and international festivals including Primavera, Glastonbury, Coachella, Le Guess Who? (which she curated), and both Newport and Montreal Jazz.
She has appeared on NPR’s Tiny Desk, Later with Jools Holland, Brodie and Mahogany sessions. Aftab has been featured in The New York Times, The Guardian, Pitchfork, Rolling Stone, The Financial Times, The Quietus, and Time, to name a few. She is a 2023 United States Artists Fellow and recipient of the Vilcek Prize for Creative Promise in Music.
If you have access needs, feel free to email Aoife at aoife@cqaf.com for more info—we’re happy to help!
A hallucinatory fever dream of a film, Ebony & Ivory reimagines the fabled first meeting between Paul McCartney and Stevie Wonder as an absurdist, grotesque, and utterly baffling descent into comedic madness. Think Reeves & Mortimer at their most unhinged, soaked in the sinister weirdness of The League of Gentlemen, all wrapped up in a kaleidoscopic, off-kilter vision from director Jim Hosking (The Greasy Strangler).
Paul (Sky Elobar) welcomes Stevie (Gil Gex) to his remote Mull of Kintyre farmhouse—via rowing boat, naturally—for what might become the greatest plea for racial harmony ever recorded. Between hits of “doobie woobies” and a complete annihilation of Linda McCartney’s vegetarian ready meal range, the two musical legends spiral into increasingly bizarre conversations about sheep, the meaning of true genius, and the terrifying weight of artistic immortality.
What follows is an anarchic, unsettling, and wildly funny two-hander that veers between surrealist farce and nightmarish fever dream. It’s a world where reality fractures, comedy curdles, and the line between genius and gibberish is so blurred you may need your pulse checked by the time the credits roll.
A deranged cult classic in the making—utter nonsense, absolute brilliance.
Ebony and Ivory is absolute nonsense and absolute brilliance, and if you don’t start choke laughing at some stage, get the person next to you to check your pulse –In Session Film
Ebony and Ivory delivers in abundance. It’s an almost theatrical two-hander that gives both actors their time to shine – Starburst
Luca Fogale’s voice is impossible to ignore, elevating songs rooted in the folk tradition to soulful hymns about the human condition.
Influenced by the likes of Joni Mitchell and Bob Dylan, Luca’s reflective and sometimes melancholic songwriting pulls listeners into a deeply hypnotic meditation on redemption and transcendence.
The Canadian singer-songwriter is a two-time JUNO nominee (Canada’s Grammy equivalent) and his catalogue boasts over 250M streams.
Luca has released 3 acclaimed full-length albums – Safety (2016), Nothing is Lost (2020), and Run Where the Light Calls (2023). Luca has toured with Dermot Kennedy and Brett Eldridge and has headlined shows across Canada, the US, UK, Europe, Australia, and Japan.
This show is strictly for audiences aged 18 and over.
If you have access needs, feel free to email Aoife at aoife@cqaf.com for more info—we’re happy to help!
Timber Timbre is forced to cancel all remaining shows scheduled for May 2025 due to ongoing injury.
Tickets can be refunded at point of purchase. We apologize for the disappointment and truly appreciate your support.
Six years after their last studio album, Taylor Kirk’s Canadian band Timber Timbre finally releases a new record, “Lovage”- his most accomplished and engrossing album to date.
“Lovage” is an album marrying perverted piano ballads and spiritual jazz interludes on islands of exotica and psyche-prog with Spectoresque girl-group cabaret. Recorded in 2022 in Quebec with Mike Dubue (Hilotrons), the album features Olivier Fairfield (Fet Nat, Andy Shauf) and members of the Voices of Praise gospel choir (Howe Gelb).
Since releasing and extensively touring “Sincerely, Future Pollution” (2017), Taylor Kirk has been busy working as a producer on several full-length LP’s, including Joseph Martone’s “Honeybirds” and the sophomore recording “Nightshades” by This Lonesome Paradise.
Timber Timbre have quietly released two cassette-only EP’s, “I Am Coming To Paris” and “The Dissociation Tapes Volume1”. Finally returning with a new full-length entitled “Lovage,” the most accomplished and engrossing Timber Timbre album to date. Which isn’t to say that Taylor Kirk has merely refined his working methods. In fact, “Lovage” is a bona fide masterpiece, as Kirk manages to combine disparate influences that would otherwise seem mutually incompatible.
Together with producer-engineer Michael Dubue, he reconciles Brian Wilson’s rich sonic palette with the amused melancholy of Leonard Cohen. Kirk admits to revisiting Sun Ra, Dorothy Ashby and Alice Coltrane, as well as Italian singers such as Pino Daniele and Paolo Conte, which might explain the cinematic lightness of the new album.
Kirk returned to his native Ontario in 2019 after spending a few years in Quebec and Texas. He made it back just in time to sit out the Covid pandemic and regroup. “I moved back to Ontario where I had grown up, a place I left 20 years ago and swore I’d never return to. ‘Holy Motors’ is an homage to this place I love and hate-but also love to hate,” he says of the town where he spent the lockdown. “But it’s a good place to be trapped”.
One could say the same of the sonic landscapes he evokes on “Lovage”. It’s a wonderful album to be trapped on, a modern masterpiece for troubled times one will find oneself returning to again and again.
This show is strictly for audiences aged 18 and over.
If you have access needs, feel free to email Aoife at aoife@cqaf.com for more info—we’re happy to help!
On the heels of her critically acclaimed double-album Joan Of All, SBT (aka SarabethTucek) returns to the UK for a short-run of special acoustic shows accompanied by her long-time producer Luther Russell.
Sarabeth Tucek emerged from a decade-long hibernation away from the record business and released Joan of All worldwide in 2023 via her own imprint, Ocean Omen. Lead single “The Gift” was immediately picked up by Marc Riley on BBC 6 Music who championed the single. The adulation for Joan of All culminated in rave reviews from Uncut (9/10), Mojo (four stars ****) and more. Joan Of All became her first record to hit the UK Official Charts, making the Record Store Chart Top 20, The Indie Album Breakers Chart Top 10 and the Official Indie Albums Chart Top 30.
Sarabeth Tucek originally broke onto the music scene in 2003 performing a series of spellbinding duets with Bill Callahan on the acclaimed Smog album Supper. This was followed by an appearance in the award-winning Brian Jonestown Massacre documentary DIG!. Sarabeth’s self-titled debut album hit stores tin 2007, leading to unwavering support at the BBC and even opening for Bob Dylan. In 2011, Sarabeth followed up her extraordinary debut with the raw, uncompromising album Get Well Soon. This release made many year-end lists and the title track was featured on the first season of HBO’s Girls.
The genesis for her current return to the music scene was one magical night in Bergen, Norway in 2019. The primarily acoustic set comprised songs from her powerful back catalogue, plus two new ones which would end up on Joan Of All. Along with Luther Russell and engineer/bassist Jason Hiller, she played the set of her life, unaware it was being recorded. The audience was rapturous and the vibe in the intimate Scandinavian club was thick as a storm cloud.
Live In Norway is being released her label Ocean Omen especially for Record Store Day and features ten tracks which range from a reimagined version of her classic “Something For You” to a maiden airing of “The Living Room” and an emotionally shattering reading of her indelible “Get Well Soon”. This one’s for the fans.
Ben de la Cour
With songs that explore life’s murky corners and shadowy characters, Ben de la Cour’s music occupies the intersection between gothic Americana and dark, gritty folk.
Albums like Ben’s 2012 debut, Ghost Light and 2018’s career-shifting The High Cost of Living Strange chronicled not only that deep sense of restlessness but also his various attempts to wrestle his own vices into submission. The result is a haunting, harrowingly personal version of folk music that earned praise from outlets like American Songwriter and NPR.
This show is strictly for audiences aged 18 and over.
If you have access needs, feel free to email Aoife at aoife@cqaf.com for more info—we’re happy to help!
Michael Cera Palin are an emotive indie-punk trio from Atlanta, GA. The band are noted for consciously vulnerable lyrics, a cathartically catchy sound, and an impassioned live show, all forged through a decade of cutting teeth in the genre-fluid arts landscape of their home.
MCP released two EPs from 2015-2018 before a premature hiatus. After derailed ambitions for their 2020 return (now to a notably larger listenership than they had previously left behind), the band retreated from the social dimension of the community to begin carving their new chapter, and finding a voice of their own.
They then released 2 singles, before starting toward an accelerating tour ethic since 2022, diligently assuring fans along the way that a debut full-length album would be with them in due time.
Whether owed to or despite their limited output, Michael Cera Palin’s work continues to accrue fervent support, with mounting anticipation of their new material.
A real man. A Bro’s Bro. A macho & Cool man who chops wood. Because chopping wood is what real men do. The world is burning, the birds are gone, and the only solution? More chopping.
But no matter how much wood is split, it’s never enough. The brain won’t shut up. The cracks start to show. And if the chopping stops… then what?
CHOP is a violently stupid and stupidly violent deep dive into fragile egos, environmental collapse, and the absurdity of existence. Expect big laughs, real danger, and at least one existential crisis (probably yours).
Arts Council Ireland, The Visual Carlow, Dublin Fringe Festival
Duration: 50mins
Age Guidance: 14+
Content warning: contains some swearing and partial nudity (and a lot of chopped wood)
Combining physical performance and immersive installation, VARC – Visual Audio Radical Circus transforms a warehouse on Gordon Street into a stage for bodies exploring the possibilities of physical space, giving permission for provocative play on the ground and in the air!
VARC will bring together a cast of multidisciplinary circus artists into a uniquely curated space, each brimming with technical talent in aerial performance, with the ability to evoke within their artform, testing limits and stunning you with captivating execution.
Their work will be complemented by an original score from Belfast sound artist Marty Byrne.
This is a collaborative work, curated and produced by Emmen Jude Donnelly, one of Ireland’s most well-respected aerial arts practitioners. The making of this show has been supported by the 2025 CQAF/FOF bursary for circus.
“A strobe flickers on a dangling body as it twists & writhes in the air, daringly contorting to the pulsating heavy rhythmical beat.”
It’s a welcome return for our 2023 Artist in Residence. Taylor Lally grew up near Donaghadee in County Down. For Christmas 2011 she received her first guitar from her father who hoped she would carry on the family hobby of playing music.
She became enchanted with the instrument and inspired by James Taylor, Joni Mitchell, and Bob Marley started writing her own songs, eventually attending BIMM (British Institute of Modern Music) in both Brighton and Dublin to study music performance, eventually graduating with a degree in songwriting.
When she returned she became been busy performing in Belfast and the North Down area. More recently she has ventured further afield playing support around Ireland to the likes of Steve Forbert, Mary Coughlan, Joachim Cooder and Teddy Thompson.
She was awarded the coveted Artist In Residence spot at the 2023 Cathedral Quarter Arts Festival and since then has headlined in both the recently refurbished Bangor Courthouse and the Crescent Arts Centre, selling out both shows.
In 2023 Taylor released a new song every month with all 12 tracks included in a compilation CD that was in released July 2024 and available at her gigs.
‘‘I am finally just stepping into the world.” muses Taylor “After so many years of playing cover songs in bars, studying and writing, no words can describe how that feels”.
‘The singer from Co. Down has been compared to the likes of Ricki-Lee Jones with the guitar sensibilities of John Martyn. She also strikes a chord with her poignant song writing craft. Dealing with themes of growing up in a changing Northern Ireland and healing from heartache … you can’t help but admire Taylor Lally’s impressive knack for pulling our heartstrings’ – Chordblossom journalist, Elle McGinn.
In 2012 Gruff Rhys embarked on a solo ‘investigative concert tour’ through the heart of America following the route taken by his distant relative John Evans.
Every night he presented songs augmented by a powerpoint presentation that detailed his relative’s unbelievable history, along with any new piece of information that had come his way during the day.
He was ultimately looking for Evans’s lost unmarked grave. Along with many major cities, the tour took him to play shows at the Mandan and Omaha tribe reservations, a Missouri vineyard, villages that no longer exist and lay at the bottom of the Mississippi river and a New Orleans bordello.
What transpired from that ‘investigative concert tour’ was a 2014 album, American Interior, plus a book, film and exhaustive tour of the same name.
‘Revisiting American Interior 11 years later, feels very prescient. In following the unusual story of explorer John Evans (1770 1799) it becomes clear that faked narratives can have profound and unpredictable consequences in real life.
His barely believable journey of verification in searching through continental scale wilderness for a [fictitious] Welsh speaking tribe believed to be living on the Great Plains of North America (an ancient folk tale perpetuated by the Elizabethan court following the subjugation of Wales, to make colonial claims on behalf of the British on the Americas) had a dramatic political effect on the fledgling USA and a devastating impact on himself and some of those who helped him on his way.’ – Gruff Rhys
Hayden Thorpe came to prominence as the lead singer and chief songwriter for the much-celebrated band Wild Beasts who released five acclaimed albums on Domino Records before disbanding.
Hayden has since released three solo albums on Domino; Diviner, a critically adored work of solitude and fragility. Sophomore album Moondust For My Diamond, a work that is galvanising, reassuring, elegant, seductive and oozing in Big Cosmic Energy.
September 2024 saw the release of Ness, an album of rare ambition and singular beauty made in collaboration with best-selling nature writer Robert Macfarlane.
Known for his distinctive voice and sultry compositions, Thorpe’s return to Cumbria marks a new era for his craft reflective of the natural environment he lives surrounded by.
This show is strictly for audiences aged 18 and over.
If you have access needs, feel free to email Aoife at aoife@cqaf.com for more info—we’re happy to help!
Roll your sleeves up and get floury! Tracey Jeffery from Tracey’s Farmhouse Kitchen will demonstrate how to make Northern Ireland’s most loved traditional breads – Soda and Potato bread.
Now it’s your turn! You’ll make your own soda and potato breads in the traditional way – no measuring or weighing required!
Your breads will cook on a Griddle and from start to finish they’ll be ready to eat within 15 minutes. You’ll take home 4 farls of Soda and 4 farls of Potato bread, or enjoy them with lunch, hot off the griddle. There’s even a prize for the best breads.
Includes tea / coffee on arrival, bread making experience, followed by dinner (6pm) or lunch (1pm).
Caoilinn Hughes talks about her work and her latest novel ‘The Alternatives’.
From the writer Anthony Doerr calls ‘a massive talent’, The Alternatives is the story of four brilliant sisters, orphaned in childhood, who scramble to reconnect when the eldest disappears into the Irish countryside.
Caoilinn Hughes is an Irish writer whose second novel, The Wild Laughter (2020) won the Royal Society of Literature’s Encore Award 2021, was longlisted for the 2021 Swansea University International Dylan Thomas Prize and was shortlisted for three other awards.
Her first novel, Orchid & the Wasp (2018), won the Collyer Bristow Prize 2019, was longlisted for the International Dublin Literary Award, and shortlisted for four other awards. Her poetry book, Gathering Evidence (2014) won the Irish Times Shine/Strong Award.
Her short stories have been awarded the Moth Short Story Prize, the Irish Book Awards’ Story of the Year, and an O. Henry Prize. She has been Writer Fellow at Trinity College Dublin and Maastricht University in the Netherlands. The Alternatives is her third novel.
A Book of the Year according to The Irish Times & Irish Independent.
‘Surprising and delightful… The Alternatives made me laugh, cry, and think.’ Louise Kennedy, author of Trespasses
Perfect for fans of Jonathan Franzen, Maggie O’Farrell and Claire Vaye Watkins.
Join us for a special screening of Poitín (1978), Bob Quinn’s groundbreaking Irish-language film that delves into the world of illicit poitín distillation in the rugged Connemara landscape. As Ireland’s first feature film in Irish, Poitín is a gripping tale of tradition, rebellion, and survival, starring Cyril Cusack, Donal McCann, and Niall Tóibín.
To enhance the experience, guests will enjoy complimentary samples of Ban Poitín, a premium craft spirit that celebrates Ireland’s historic illicit distilling culture. Following the screening, a special talk from Dave Mulligan, owner of Bán Poitín will explore the rich and often turbulent history of poitín-making, tracing its roots from ancient times to its modern resurgence.
This event promises an evening of film, folklore, and fine spirits…
This event is strictly over 18s only.
If you have any access requirements please give Aoife an email at aoife@cqaf.com – we’re happy to help!
Honey, you’ve got a big storm coming. For your safety, please follow this pair of prancing poofs to SHAME SHOW, a sketchy comedy of catastrophic proportions from Skelpie Limmer, the creators of Scaredy Fat and Two Fingers Up.
Adam and Stevie are stuck inside. Storm Seamus is about to strike. The rural fixer-upper they’ve inherited can’t hack it – and neither can their relationship. But through the static of Aunt Mary’s old TV comes an offer of salvation asking:
Have you been mis-sold big gay shame?
Wouldn’t it all be better in a different, sunnier, more progressive place?
Will Northern Ireland ever progress if all the progressives leave?
Is there really no place like home?
Channel-hopping their way through programmes of poofy-past, the couple confront home, happiness and heteronormativity as they battle the storm and each other’s beliefs.
A worthy First Fortnight Award winner at Dublin Fringe 2024, Colm McCready & Fergus Wachala-Kelly’s hugely entertaining and poignant SHAME SHOW disempowers the negativity that shaped us and the fear we’ve been force-fed, shaking off the shackles of shame for the climb ahead.
Developed at MAKE, HATCH at The MAC Belfast, and Incubate at Tinderbox Theatre Company.
Award-winning Belfast writer and performer Patrick J O’Reilly brings his captivating new play, Dressed for Space, to a Belfast audience for the first time.
Simon has never felt at home on Earth—because Simon is an alien in disguise. Now, he’s arranged for his extraterrestrial family to pick him up from a Belfast rooftop, and he’s inviting you to his farewell party. A deeply personal and uplifting story of belonging, difference, and the search for home, Dressed for Space blends humour, heart, and sci-fi wonder in a one-of-a-kind theatrical experience.
Originally developed during an artistic residency at Rotterdam Rooftop Festival, the play has toured across Europe but makes its Belfast debut under the open sky.
“To perform on a rooftop is a beautiful experience. Having the sky as a backdrop creates a sense of awe—and I think we should be in awe every day.” – Patrick J O’Reilly
Limited capacity— As this is an outdoor event please dress warm and weather-appropriate.
Accessible entry via CastleCourt.
How to Find the Event at Castle Court
Location: Level 6 Rooftop, Castle Court Shopping Centre, Royal Ave, Belfast BT1 1DD
From the Main Entrance:
Enter Castle Court Shopping Centre through the main doors.
Take the escalators or stairs up to Level 1.
Locate the main lifts near the food court. (Near Argos)
Take the lift to Level 6.
From the Car Park:
Park in the Castle Court multi-storey car park.
Follow signs to the lifts.
Take the lift directly to Level 6.
Once on Level 6:
Follow event signage to the rooftop entrance.
Staff in blue t-shirts will be on hand to guide you.
If you need assistance, please ask a staff member or security. See you there!
40 years after the release of debut EP Religious Persuasion, Andy White is back home in Belfast and touring the UK in May/June in support of new live album The night is approaching though some would say it was morning. The tour starts at CQAF and finishes at Glastonbury, where old chum Billy Bragg has invited Andy to appear on the Left Field stage.
The story of the live album begins with the friendship between Andy and producer John Leckie (The Bends, Muse, Roy Harper, Baba Maal). The two met during one of Peter Gabriel’s recording weeks at Real World Studios and immediately hit it off, with John mixing and producing many of Andy’s recordings. After one of Andy’s concerts, John told him he wanted to buy an album of what he had just heard. A solo album recorded live. No band. No overdubs. “Where are we going to record it?” “The best-sounding room in the world – Studio Two at Abbey Road.”
On July 14, 2023, Andy and John met at Abbey Road. John got his first job there in 1970. His interview was the day the Beatles crossed the road for a photo. Andy had listened to albums recorded there and looked at photos taken there since Revolver played at primary school parties. Giles Martin was driving out as they drove in. Andy brought three guitars and an amp. John organised everything and when he took Andy down the stairs into Studio Two, told him to stop and smell the room. Nothing had changed since those great records had been recorded. You could feel it in the equipment, the fabric, the floorboards.
John had asked Andy to write his best set list. In the afternoon they recorded the first half, in the evening a small group of friends and family arrived, and they recorded the second. You can see what it looked like on the album sleeve, you can hear the room on the record. Everyone went to the café afterwards and sat drinking and talking under the photos of Peter Sellers and Sophia Loren, Cilla and the Beatles. Andy said goodbye and walked across the crossing on the way to the hire car. It was done.
The double-CD set has both evening and afternoon sessions, one on each disc. The vinyl LP has the evening session and a download code for both sessions. The live show will feature songs from throughout Andy’s songwriting career from ‘Religious Persuasion’ and ‘James Joyce’s Grave’ to ‘Italian Girls on Mopeds’ and ‘Good Luck I Hope You Make It’. The Belfast troubadour has come home.
Niamh Bury is one of the most exciting new voices on the Irish folk scene. Her debut album, Yellow Roses, was released in March 2024 – quickly stirring hearts, receiving wide critical acclaim and earning #3 on Mojo’s Best Folk Albums of 2024 list. Niamh’s richly-textured folk sound and singular vocals has lead her to share the stage with acts Ye Vagabonds, Flyte, Maddison Cunningham, Dermot Kennedy and Martin Hayes.
Nominated for Best Emerging Artists at the 2024 RTE Folk Awards, Niamh is one of the chief organisers of the iconic traditional singing session ‘The Night Before Larry Got Stretched’, which famously takes place in The Cobblestone pub, and whose founders include members of Lankum and Landless. Along with ØXN and Lemoncello, she is one of the first new artists in almost two decades to be signed to Ireland’s most culturally important record label, Claddagh Records.
Praise for Yellow Roses:
“Think folky Cat Power or sun-drunk Weyes Blood and prepare to be transported.”Mojo ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
“Bury’s vocal style is reminiscent of Laura Marling and Lisa Hannigan’s, her diction highly distinctive and her phrasing impeccable.”The Irish Times ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
“‘Yellow Roses’ poses itself as an immaculate debut album from quickly rising folk wonder Niamh Bury.”Golden Plec ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
“The effect of immersing yourself in the record is holistic, like gazing up at a sweeping fresco, the detail so magnificent it’s impossible to decide where to lay your eyes first.”Hot Press – 9.5/10
This show is strictly for audiences aged 18 and over.
If you have access needs, feel free to email Aoife at aoife@cqaf.com for more info—we’re happy to help!
20 years in stand-up for the ‘Taskmaster’ cheeky texts icon, multi-award-winner, YouTube cult figure, Radio 4 favourite and recently ‘Baby Reindeer’ actor, Watson returns after seasons at the Adelaide, Melbourne, Sydney and Edinburgh comedy festivals.
A recent encounter with a stranger caused Mark to spend some time pondering the uncertain future facing humanity. He explores this – along with equally pressing matters like the worst word he has ever said in public, the current state of the UK sausage industry, and much more – in a typically frantic and fun-packed new show.
★★★★★ ‘A genius-level comic doing what he does best’ Time Out Melbourne
★★★★★ ‘Quite unlike anything else I’ve seen in almost 20 years of covering the Fringe…witty, warm, perfectly judged’ Telegraph
★★★★ ½ ‘An hour or two of our limited span on Earth in his uplifting, witty company is time excellently spent’ Chortle
★★★★ ‘One of the most genuinely joyous presences in comedy’ The Times
★★★★ ‘This is a stand-up operating at the very top of his game’ Independent
This show is strictly for audiences aged 18 and over.
If you have access needs, feel free to email Aoife at aoife@cqaf.com for more info—we’re happy to help!
Noah Gundersen has been writing and recording music since he was 13, working his way from teenage hardcore and indie rock to the creation of his own distinctive strain of bold, genre-busting songcraft.
Noah takes vulnerability to a new level on brand new full-length studio album, If This Is The End. Gundersen’s first offering since 2021’s A Pillar of Salt. Born out of a soul-searching period in Gundersen’s life where he was working a construction job after having enjoyed a fruitful career in music, the songs on If This Is The End detail the regret and failure of those years, but it also highlights his new found outlook on hope and the transformative power of love.
“I found myself disillusioned with the industry and no longer knew my place in it,” Gundersen recalls. “The world around me has changed rapidly and I sometimes have difficulty grasping it. There were moments when I felt I had lost the wind from my sails, but I still love creating music and I love these songs.”
Along with his recorded canon, Gundersen – who also maintains membership in Seattle indie rock heroes Young In The City and the all-star Americana collective known as Glorietta – has spent much of his adult life on the road, performing as headline act and support to like-minded artists spanning Emmylou Harris, Lucinda Williams, Beck, City & Colour, and Josh Ritter.
This show is strictly for audiences aged 18 and over.
If you have access needs, feel free to email Aoife at aoife@cqaf.com for more info—we’re happy to help!
Join us for a rehearsed reading with music of a vibrant new play by acclaimed playwright, Brenda Winter Palmer.
Cast
Santa Lucia Forza: Libby Smyth
Fortuna: Maggie Cronin
Musician: Rod McVey
It is 1937. In Italy, Mussolini is at the zenith of his Fascist powers. In Belfast, the celebrated chippy, Lucy’s, is gearing up for the usual Friday night rush. Its owner, Santa Lucia Forza, is not happy. It is fifty years since she escaped hunger to find a better life in Belfast. But, now that Il Duce has made Italy great again, she longs to go home. Her husband, street musician Antonio, has other ideas.
Santa Lucia’s widowed daughter Fortuna is refusing to help in the shop. Nor will she find other employment. Fortuna’s son Pietro, to his Nonna’s dismay, is more interested in hurling than in learning Italian. All Santa Lucia’s woes come to a head when she tries to set her daughter up as a fortune teller. In 1937. it is probably best not to see too far ahead.
This play pays tribute to the Italian economic migrants who flocked to Ireland from the 1880s onwards. They have contributed richly to cultural and economic life here as vendors of fish suppers, ‘99s’, pokes and sliders as well as bringing us their skills as musicians and exquisite terrazzo tilers. They were ill-rewarded when Mussolini entered Hitler’s War in 1940 and Italian residents became enemy aliens overnight.
Brenda Winter Palmer is the author of the First World War drama, Medal in the Drawer, and the highly successful ‘show band wives’ story, Keep Telling Me Lies. Her most recent play, RSVP: Typhoid Mary, is slated with Brassneck Theatre Company for production in 2026.
Running time: 70 minutes. There will be an opportunity for discussion and questions after the performance.
Age: 14+
Photo: La Famiglia Marcantonio (Marken). With thanks to the Marken family for permission to use the photograph. Thanks too to the members of Victor’s Cafe Facebook page for all their help.
With special guests: Barbara Dickson, Nick Holland, Eilidh Patterson, Ronnie Greer, Brigid O’Neill, Ciaran Lavery, *Ken Haddock, Clive Culbertsonand superb house band, MD – Matt McGinn
In the early 2000’s, much-loved and missed BBC presenter Gerry Anderson began to play a song called ‘Sailortown’ on an almost daily rotation. This beautifully simple song quickly found a home in the hearts of Anderson’s audience as each listen brought them on a wonderful journey of love and nostalgia with the backdrop of the Troubles and a thriving music scene.
A love affair had begun between the people of Northern Ireland and prolific songwriter and singer, Anthony Toner.
‘Without Gerry’s support at that early stage,’ says Anthony, ‘I’m honestly not sure if I would ever have been able to create an audience. Certainly not as quickly as I did, with that song.’
Some decades, and over a dozen albums later, Anthony has reached milestones in his career, and now his life…
…Anthony Toner turns 60.
Reflecting on this incredible journey Anthony is incredibly proud of not only his vast body of work but the friends and musical collaborators he has met along the way.
‘As a teenager, I watched bands at work and dreamed of being part of a musical ‘family’… so the relationships I’ve built with so many immensely talented musicians has become a joy to me.’
On this very special evening we will celebrate the work and the relationships with Anthony, an outstanding house band and a vast array of special guests who will enjoy exploring and interpreting the immense Anthony Toner catalogue.
Join us for this special one-off event and celebration like no other.
*Due to scheduling, Ken Haddock will be replaced by Ciara O’Neill on the Saturday 10 May performance
If you have access needs, feel free to email Aoife at aoife@cqaf.com for more info—we’re happy to help!
With David Johansen’s recent passing, we felt it fitting to screen this 2023 film by Martin Scorcese, a wonderfully intimate film which is both a testament to a lost New York and to an artist who remained fresh and exciting to the end.
Following the screening, local rock ‘n rollers Sabrejets will be channelling the spirit of David Johansen, the New York Dolls and Johny Thunders in a specially commissioned festival show.
For the past 30 years, James Lavelle has been at the forefront of global club culture. Known as much for his eclectic DJ sets as for his production work with UNKLE, Lavelle has been lauded as a highly influential tastemaker and musical curator.
Alongside a successful DJ career Lavelle continues to produce albums under his UNKLE moniker, working with a myriad cast of musical collaborators including Thom Yorke, Michael Kiwanuka, Mark Lanegan, Massive Attack, Brian Eno and Josh Homme.
The most recent full length UNKLE album, The Road: Part II / Lost Highway topped the Billboard Electronic Album chart in 2019. With UNKLE, Lavelle has won the MPG Award for remixer of the year four times in the past seven years and has reworked tracks for artists as diverse as Beck, London Grammar, Radiohead and Wu-Tang Clan.
In 2014, Lavelle was asked to curate the iconic Meltdown on London’s South Bank, joining a long list of musical luminaries such as David Bowie, Yoko Ono, Massive Attack, Nick Cave and John Peel, amongst others, something he described as one of his career highlights.
Lavelle’s long interest in the visual arts led him to create the ‘Daydreaming With…’ exhibition series back in 2010. This celebration of creativity and innovation in all its forms, aimed to create a unique and multi-sensory experience pairing music with art in a wide range of disciplines, including film, photography, fashion, performance, painting, street art, sound, and sculpture combined under one roof to create the ultimate multi-sensory environment. One such incarnation saw Lavelle curate ‘Daydreaming with Stanley Kubrick’, a blockbuster exhibition at London’s Somerset House in 2016, that featured contributions from artists such as Anish Kapoor, Sarah Lucas, Gavin Turk, Thomas Bangalter and many more.
2018 saw the release of ‘The Man from Mo’Wax’, a critically acclaimed documentary film about Lavelle’s career, that saw a major release with the BFI, as well as showings at several international film festivals.
March 2021 saw UNKLE release the first in a two-part mixtape project, Rōnin I, which featured the singles ‘Do Yourself Some Good’ and ‘If We Don’t Make It’, both A Listed at BBC Radio 6Music. 2022. UNKLE followed this up in August 2022 with the release of Rōnin II, the second part of the project.
2023 saw UNKLE return to touring following the pandemic, with shows across Europe. Lavelle curated, DJed and performed the UNKLE Rōnin show with bespoke visuals at Hydra’s closing party held at London clubbing institution Printworks before it shut its doors at the end of April. Autumn saw UNKLE take the Rōnin show across the Atlantic returning to the USA and Mexico for a tour as well as DJing across the globe.
Throughout 2024 the UNKLE Rōnin show went from strength to strength with dates across the world. 2024 has seen UNKLE perform to massive crowds in China at Bubbling & Boiling Festival in Tianjin and at Kiloglow Festival in Hangzhou, a headline slot at the infamous Secret Garden Party festival, dates in Latvia, in Germany, and a hugely successful UK tour culminating in a packed show at London’s Outernet in the autumn. Lavelle continues to DJ with shows in Europe and the UK as well as DJing at and curating a special “Invites” night celebrating Fabric’s 25th anniversary.
As we head into 2025 James is back in the studio writing a new album, continuing touring and excited about what the next chapter for UNKLE will bring.
This show is strictly for audiences aged 18 and over.
If you have access needs, feel free to email Aoife at aoife@cqaf.com for more info—we’re happy to help!
“The Morricone Experience” is a tribute to the late maestro of film music who wrote over 400 film compositions in his lifetime, including the scores for audience favourites “A Fistful of Dollars”, “The Good the Bad and the Ugly”,” Cinema Paradiso”, and “The Mission”.
The ensemble comprises acclaimed solo international artists residing in Ireland. These include Dundalk locals Annemarie McGahon (viola), Francesca De Nardi (violin), Davide Forti (cello) and Annalisa Monticelli (piano) and Dubliners Katy Kelly (soprano) and Morgan Crowley (tenor).
Featured on RTÈ’s Arena, this ensemble played to a sold-out crowd in the Pavilion Theatre & Castletown House and are touring theatres throughout Ireland until the end of 2025.
Following on from last year’s unforgettable performances at The American Bar and a year that has seen him bring his joyous, uplifting sound to many rooms, festivals, and dancers across Europe, Moving On Music is delighted to welcome Irish based Kurdish/Syrian singer and Bouzouki player, Mohammad Syfkhan, back to Belfast.
Mohammad Syfkhan’s own brand of ecstatic music takes elements from Middle Eastern and North African music to create an atmosphere of joy, love and happiness.
Since arriving in Ireland, Mohammad has used the language of music to integrate into the local community by playing at private parties and concerts. He has been playing music since the 1980’s, while living in the city of Raqqa, Syria where he began working as a professional singer and started his own band, The Al-Rabie Band, which played concerts, parties, weddings and festivals all over Syria.
His debut album ‘I Am Kurdish’(“A record that truly slaps” – The Quietus) came out through Nyahh Records in February 2024 and led to performances at Lankum’s ‘In The Meadows’ festival, Other Voices, the Venice Biennale, and on the Tommy Tiernan show, to name but a few.
“Syfkhan takes his domestic influences and fuses them with music from beyond those regions, from North African folk rhythms to Turkish psychedelia. It’s a glorious alembic not bound by borders, where Mohammad himself brings a cultivated exuberance to his playing that belies his vintage.”– The Quietus
”No one could be left sitting to this” – Klof Mag
This show is strictly for audiences aged 18 and over.
If you have access needs, feel free to email Aoife at aoife@cqaf.com for more info—we’re happy to help!
This will be special. Andy Irvine is one of the great Irish singers, his voice one of a handful of truly great ones that gets to the very soul of Ireland. He has been hailed as “a tradition in himself”.
Musician, singer, songwriter, Andy has maintained his highly individual performing skills throughout his over 50-year career.
Andy has been at the helm of legendary bands like Sweeney’s Men in the mid 60s, to the enormous success of Planxtyin the 70s, and then Patrick Street, Mozaik, LAPD and recently Quilty. Andy has been a world music pioneer and an icon for traditional music and musicians.
As a soloist, Andy fills the role of the archetypal troubadour with a show and a travelling lifestyle that reflect his lifelong influence, Woody Guthrie.
To quote the Irish Times, “Often copied, never equaled”, his repertoire consists of Irish traditional songs, dexterous Balkan dance tunes and a compelling cannon of his own self-penned songs.
Between the achievements of his solo, group work and collaborations, he is a highly revered troubadour of the Irish music world. Andy never fails to deliver a pulsating, heartfelt performance.
‘Andy Irvine’s solo stage show is a musical travelogue through time and space. His right hand dexterity on bouzouki was nothing short of amazing.’ – FRETS MAGAZINE
‘His artistry is quite simply unique.’ – THE INDEPENDENT
Join us for an afternoon of sharp wit, radical history, and political insight as Tariq Ali discusses his latest memoir, You Can’t Please All: Memoirs 1980-2024. Spanning over four decades of activism, journalism, and cultural commentary, Ali’s book is a sweeping reflection on his encounters with revolutionaries, intellectuals, and political upheavals across the globe.
From his days as a Trotskyist firebrand to shaping leftist discourse in the pages of New Left Review, Ali remains an unrelenting critic of power. Expect anecdotes that range from the humorous—like his theatrical intervention at Private Eye—to the harrowing, including his firsthand account of police brutality at the 1979 Southall protests. He will also revisit his collaborations with the late Darcus Howe on The Bandung File, his dialogues with Hugo Chávez, and his take on today’s global crises, including Gaza.
Ali’s memoir is engaging—equal parts score-settling and brilliant political analysis. In conversation with Joe Nawaz, he will unpack the ideas, controversies, and contradictions that have shaped his life and work, and we’ll find out if The Rolling Stones’ political anthem ‘Street Fighting Man’ was written about him.
CQAF and Seamus Heaney Centre at Queen’s welcomes Theresa Lola to Belfast to read from and talk about her latest collection.
In Yoruba culture, newborn babies are welcomed into the world, and ushered into the social fabric, through naming ceremonies filled with songs of praise. The names bestowed are communicative both of where the baby has come from – the circumstances of its birth, the atmosphere in the home – and of where its future will take it. Both are forms of destiny.
Far-reaching and musical, Theresa Lola’s second collection explores the act of naming and its role in shaping our identities, our aspirations, what we carry and how we belong. Lola conjures and questions the realities of her dual Nigerian-British identity; traces the lineages of names; asks why some deserve to be named while others are treated as though invisible; and explores the ways our journey through life might require us to cast off old expectations – both others’ and our own – just as at other times it can bring us back, strangely and unexpectedly, to where we first began.
In lyrical, joyful and moving poems, Lola breaks down the complexities of the diasporic experience and the way it is woven through family life, history and memory.
The poems in. Ceremony for the Nameless. are suffused with a beautifully intimate energy.that belies an insistent transformative power- always at work in seducing us into seeing the world through a different lens – personal and cultural, fascinating and enriching – Bernardine Evaristo
There is a bold immediacy and striking grace to Lola’s writing, rendering it accessible and memorable… this book assures her place asa trailblazer for a new wave of poets The Guardian
What a joy to see a new sun rising in the poetic sky! We all will enjoy this collection,Ceremony for the Nameless, following the questions and answers with which Theresa Lola struggles. She offers here a wonderful book to add to your collection. – Nikki Giovanni
Whether writing about the British Occupation of Nigeria, Immigration, or her family, Theresa Lola is relentlessly inventive and often stunning.She owns the English language – Ishmael Reed
An immaculate and moving collection about the divisions and vulnerability of identity from a divine writer – Candice Carty-Williams
About Theresa Lola
Theresa Lola is a British Nigerian poet and writer and was appointed the Young People’s Laureate for London in the year 2019-20. In 2018 she was awarded the Brunel International African Poetry Prize. She holds an Mst in Creative Writing from University of Oxford. In 2022 the poem ‘Equilibrium’ from her debut poetry collection,In Search of Equilibrium, was added to OCR’s GCSE English Literature syllabus.
For anyone who’s ever been young and dreamed of going to a festival and finding Nirvana…
Lisdoon Nirvana is a dramatic monologue with live music, written and performed by Frankie McCafferty and directed by Charlie Bonner.
Based on the last music festival at Lisdoonvarna in July 1983, the piece follows one young guy, Macker, and his friends making the Odyssean trip from Donegal to Clare. Travelling on the pillion of his friend’s two-stroke motorbike, they encounter 80s Ireland and young people from all over making the same pilgrimage.
Laden with camping gear and cheap alcohol smuggled across the border, wearing a converted Garda riot control helmet stuffed with bin bags, and a pair of swimming goggles, our hero undergoes a rite of passage as he ventures out into the big bad beautiful world.
Through his eyes we see the Folk and Rock glory of the Irish Glastonbury – and a country in transition, with a backdrop of recession, church oppression, emigration and Troubles. But right now Macker’s 17. There’s Smithwick’s in the rucksack. And rumour has it that the girls from the North are bringing hash and condoms. So that’s alright Mama…
Written and performed by Frankie McCafferty. Directed by Charlie Bonner
Box office now closed but tickets available on the door tonight.
Featuring Róisín Seoighe X IMLÉ & Jessie Dingle
Tá clú agus cáil tuillte ag Taylor Swift ar go leor cúiseanna. Tá bua na cumadóireachta aici, gan amhras, agus í thar a bheith cumasach ag insint scéalta grá: an lúcháir, an briseadh croí agus an meascán mearaí a bhaineann le grá na ndéagóirí; an bhá a bhí aici lena máthair nuair a buaileadh tinn í; amhráin ghreannmhara faoi dhíoltas a bhaint amach ar lucht a cáinte; na fuaimdhreacha áille in folklore agus evermore agus na beathaisnéisí atá fite fuaite ina chéile i mbaile beag Meiriceánach.
Is é atá in SREANG DHOFHEICTHE ná cnuasach speisialta dá cuid amhrán agus iad traschruthaithe i nGaeilge ag Gabriel Rosenstock agus Róisín Seoighe. Is iad Róisín Seoighe X IMLÉ agus Jessie Dingle a chuirfidh i láthair iad. Mar chuid den seó, beidh íomhánna ar scáileán le Margaret Lonergan.
SREANG DHOFHEICTHE is a special weave of songs from Taylor Swift’s critically acclaimed albums, folkore and evermore, with their intertwined narratives of life and love in a small American town.
Translated into Irish by Gabriel Rosenstock and Róisín Seoighe, the beautiful aural landscapes of these albums will be recreated live by Róisín Seoighe X IMLÉ. And expect some surprise greatest hits selections too from special guest Jessie Dingle! Lyrics on-screen with beautiful images created by artist Margaret Lonergan.
Léirithe ag IMRAM Féile Litríochta Gaeilge | Produced by IMRAM Irish Language Literature Festival
The Bluebells enjoyed a whirlwind career spanning the early 1980’s with a recording output including three U.K. hit singles. “I’m Falling”, “Cath” and “Young at Heart” made with a procession of producers including Elvis Costello who became a mentor and teacher to the band.
Guitarist and ex-fanzine publisher Robert Hodgens (aka Bobby Bluebell) wrote instantly memorable classics in collaboration with the two McCluskey Brothers who completed the Bluebells’ essential troika and Kenneth McCluskey sang them in a likably unaffected voice, making every track count.
With the release of their debut album “Sisters” in 1984 on London Records ,the band toured widely in Europe and North America developing their live sound and signing to Seymour Stein’s Sire Records in the U.S.
Robert and the brothers parted company amicably in 1986 with Ken and David forming and releasing records as the McCluskey Brothers while Robert concentrated on song writing duties for various other artists including Texas and the late Sinead O’Connor as well as his own group The Poems.
In 1993 when “Young at Heart” hit the U.K. No 1 spot following its use as a T.V. advert for Volkswagon the chaps met up for some fun Top of the Pops appearances.
The Bluebells are delighted to be playing again having recently received two premier Scottish Music Business Awards including “The Tartan Clef Award for Song Writing” at the star studded Nordoff –Robbins charity annual fund raiser at Glasgow Barrowlands.
Following the re-release of the Classic album repackaged “Sisters” album on the Last Night From Glasgow The Bluebells were encouraged by the label and fans to record new material which has manifested itself in the excellent new album “The Bluebells In The 21st Century” released in April 2023.
Bobby, Ken, and David are currently performing a variety of acoustic gigs as a three piece.
This show is strictly for audiences aged 18 and over.
If you have access needs, feel free to email Aoife at aoife@cqaf.com for more info—we’re happy to help!
The Spitfires are a UK band known for their high-energy performances, sharp melodies, and dynamic sound. Originally formed in 2012, the group quickly gained a reputation for their distinctive style, combining punchy guitar riffs, infectious rhythms, and socially conscious lyrics. Their early releases caught the attention of both critics and fans, earning them a loyal following across the UK, Europe and beyond.
Over the years, The Spitfires released a series of well-received albums – Response (2015), A Thousand Times (2016), Year Zero (2018), Life Worth Living (2020) and Play For Today (2022). The band toured extensively, building a reputation for their electrifying live shows and ability to connect with audiences through their raw, honest music. Their songs have always reflected a deep connection to the themes of personal and social change, often exploring the complexities of modern life.
After a decade of working together, the original line-up announced they were to split up in 2022, bowing out at their final performance at a sold out Electric Ballroom, London in February of that year.
But the band’s story is far from over. In 2025, The Spitfires will be reforming with an exciting new line-up, ready to share fresh material with fans old and new. With a renewed sense of purpose and a bold new direction, the band is poised to make their return with a sound that promises to be just as powerful and relevant as ever.
This show is strictly for audiences aged 18 and over.
If you have access needs, feel free to email Aoife at aoife@cqaf.com for more info—we’re happy to help!
BONE MACHINE are a band of internationally renowned touring and recording musicians that perform a rebrand, melancholic, and punk jazz set of Tom Wait songs.
The band comprises Jack Healy on vocals and social strategy, Conor Brady on guitars and sonic sculpting, Julyo D’Agostino on bass and positive vibes and Des Harrington on drums and rhythmic karma, Dario Rodigherio on keys and spirituality.
Whether or not the songs and music of Tom Waits play a central role in your music collection, you simply have to experience this show live to feel the heaven-opening maelstrom of beauty scarcely captured by a live band.
From bourbon soaked ballads to evocative Godliness and anarchic elegance there has never been a show that has captured the golden thread of what makes Waits such a legend until now! BONE MACHINE are the crusading dark horses that keep the mysteries of life alive, offering an escape route and destination to anyone seeking liberation from the norm.
A night (day) out with BONE MACHINE will reinforce your belief in the songs of Tom Waits. From Martha to Downtown Train this band bring the heart, atmosphere and sweat to performances brimming with a ramshackle sophistication and honesty as well as the Waitsian monologues and funny anecdotes that Mr Waits is universally celebrated for. Ladies and gentlemen let us present… BONE MACHINE.
Hold Yer Tongue is an engaging hybrid of poetry and storytelling. O’Neill is an award winning writer and performer who has won two Fringe firsts at the Edinburgh Festival. He won Best actor Off Broadway for his portrayal of Nathan Cassidy in his one man play Absolution which also won The New York critics award for best play.
He has published three volumes of poetry, written plays for the stage and screen. His novel TOM JOAD AND ME was published in June 2024. ‘A carnivalesque, rockabilly narrative with a profoundly moving conclusion.’ said Patrick McCabe
He adapted the Shawshank Redemption for the stage and it is currently on a UK tour of Britain and North America.
‘O’Neill’s poems and stories are both poignant and hilarious. The highlight of the festival.’– Culture Northern Ireland.
‘O’Neill’s poems are like an emotional ambush’ – Toronto Sun
‘I was simultaneously completely helpless with laughter and moved to tears.’ – The Scotsman
Rachel Sermanni is a Scottish based singer/songwriter that makes the mundane moments mystical: shock-positive pregnancy tests in train-station toilets, coffee machine breakages, cold river swims, the regret of not saying ‘I love You’, the moon & how it pulls, bare feet on wood floors, the soft glow of a house plant, ‘what even is consciousness?’, strange dreams lingering in quiet mornings…
She brims with dreamy indie-folk pop that speaks of the struggle and desire to Flow, to love, to live, to feel. Sometimes, her songs speak of the rare moments of quiet-still, found in the midst of this struggle & desire.
Rachel’s most recent offering is her 4th studio album : Dreamer Awake. An in depth assortment of playful and candid vignettes, peeping into life: after birth, after separation and in the wake of recognising the internalised conditionings of patriarchy. She seeks to be honest with herself and her environment. She seeks to express from this raw place. She seeks to speak from the descent, the plateaus, the dream-catchings and contemplations of womanhood.
There are no conclusions to be drawn. It is a call to arms, of sorts, to wake up and dream the future, to dismiss the external for a minute and tend to the inner landscape of heart and mind. To not be distracted. To focus on the light and the shadow in equal measure.
Since the release of Dreamer Awake, Rachel has become a mother for the second time and continues to explore this experience while offering her songs and also her insights into creativity.
This show is strictly for audiences aged 18 and over.
If you have access needs, feel free to email Aoife at aoife@cqaf.com for more info—we’re happy to help!
Roll Bus Roll spotlights the life and art of Jeffrey Lewis, one of the most prominent musicians associated with New York City’s anti-folk scene.
It opens with an exploration of anti-folk, offering a look at a unique movement that challenges traditional folk conventions. We meet Lewis, a self-deprecating genius, on tour across cities and continents, and come to see him via contrasting narratives: his own modest self-assessment, and the views of fans and fellow artists such as Adam Green.
The film reaches its emotional climax as he talks about lost love, revealing the impact of his mental health struggles on the relationship.
Lael Neale’s minimalist drone pop draws inspiration from the Transcendentalists, the high lonesome sound of primitive American gospel music & the alienation of modern life. Since signing with Sub Pop in 2020, she has split her time between rural Virginia and Los Angeles in addition to extensive touring throughout Europe and select shows in the U.S.
In collaboration with producer and accompanist Guy Blakeslee, Neale has created two internationally acclaimed home-recorded albums. They have recently completed a third which is slated for release in 2025.
“A unique, boldly weird proposition, and one that proudly carries the faint hint of tractor grease. Half of it comes on like cult 70s folk artist Karen Dalton hanging out with the Velvet Underground and Suicide, while the rest offers somewhat more modern balladry, placing her more in the world of Angel Olsen and Cat Power.” – THE GUARDIAN
“Neale is imaginative, but she’s steeped in songwriting craft and she knows her way round a whopping chorus.”★★★★ – MOJO
“The simplicity is part of what makes her record so beautiful; just her voice, her words, her electric guitar, and her omnichord are enough to put the listener in a trance.” – SPIN
“She’s managed to infuse a very done old female singer-songwriter, emotive approach with fresh abandon. She abandons a lot of the traditional instrumentation and doesn’t often bother with a beat and just kind of lets the whole feeling of the thing go into a place that suddenly doesn’t sound like it’s of the industry. And I like her record.” – Iggy Pop (BBC Radio)
This show is strictly for audiences aged 18 and over.
If you have access needs, feel free to email Aoife at aoife@cqaf.com for more info—we’re happy to help!
We are delighted to present AOIBHA as this year’s CQAF Artist in Residence. The last 12 months have seen AOIBHA begin to make a serious impact with a host of impressive support slots and a sold-out full band show.
A native of Co. Down, AOIBHA’s indie-folk textures pulse with a gothic energy that subtly echoes her love for dusky literary classics like Wuthering Heights and Jane Eyre.
AOIBHA’s music is woven with vivid imagery and soundscapes, drawing inspiration from Irish artists like Joshua Burnside and Lemoncello, whose sublime folk storytelling and haunting harmonies resonate deeply.
“AOIBHA is a master at crafting music that exudes serenity… If there was ever music for late night listening while getting lost in your thoughts, this is it.”– Chordblossom
“The singer-songwriter’s lyrics are vulnerable but her sound is still 100% her own. This is only the beginning of AOIBHA’s journey…”–Hot Press
Bernard Butler is a Brit and Grammy Award winning musician. In 1989 he formed Suede releasing the Mercury winning debut Suede. The era-defining Dog Man Star was followed by his collaboration with David McAlmont on the anthem ”Yes”.
Two solo albums on Creation yielded a Brit nomination before producing seminal releases by The Libertines, Tricky, Black Kids, Kate Nash, James Morrison, Texas, Mark Eitzel, Paloma Faith and Duffy – spawning her Grammy and Brit Award winning debut Rockferry.
He has played guitar for Pet Shop Boys, Bryan Ferry, Roy Orbison, Bert Jansch, The Libertines, Neneh Cherry, Robert Plant and Ben Watt. Butler is Patron to the Bert Jansch Foundation and Generator NE and lectures in songwriting for the Abbey Road Institute.
In 2022 a collaboration with Jessie Buckley “For All Our Days That Tear The Heart” resulted in the shortlist to the 2022 Mercury Prize. Currently he has completed albums by Sam Lee, The Clockworks and a new solo album a solo album for 2024 release.
This show is strictly for audiences aged 18 and over.
If you have access needs, feel free to email Aoife at aoife@cqaf.com for more info—we’re happy to help!
A quarter of a century since his self-inflicted coronation, and self-released debut solo album, Kenny Anderson – DIY pop voyager, ancestral seaside home restorer, Fife for lifer, diamond miner, hijacker of hearts, and the man also known as King Creosote – has released over 100 records, collaborated with the likes of Jon Hopkins, KT Tunstall, Beta Band’s Lone Pigeon, and had his songs covered and performed by artists including Patti Smith and Simple Minds.
A note from Kenny –
2024’s springtime tour “Any Port in a Storm”- a mix of modular synth, I DES tracks and KC ‘classics’ was such a success that we are delighted to announce 2025’s follow up “Any Storm in a Teacup” from April-June.
This show is strictly for audiences aged 18 and over.
If you have access needs, feel free to email Aoife at aoife@cqaf.com for more info—we’re happy to help!
An exploration of memory, place, and the echoes of past dwellings.
The spaces we inhabit shape us as much as we shape them. Longitude of Longing traces the delicate connection between home and identity, where memory and geography intertwine.
Mark McGreevy: Zona showcases a compelling new series of drawings and paintings created over the past five years, reflecting the artist’s fascination with sentient landscapes as a repository for materials and ideas – sites which hold their own agency.
Through this new body of work, McGreevy summons a vivid terrain marked by borders, liminal boundaries, implausible structures, and sites resonating with ominous energy. The works guide viewers into an unrecorded zone of edgelands, dumps, burial grounds, and the remnants of a fantastical industrial collapse.
Anchored in an obsessive drawing practice, the imagery unfolds like a storyboard for a volatile and magical realm. From these landscapes, ruins and effluence spill outward, forming a surreal “anti-archaeology.” Rather than unearthing the past, McGreevy’s paintings reveal a landscape erupting into the present, exposing fractured histories and precarious futures.
Infused with the atmospheric intensity of Paul Nash, Graham Sutherland, and René Magritte, and echoing the eerie, speculative narratives of Quatermass and the Pit by Nigel Kneale, McGreevy’s work bridges the familiar and the fantastical.
Zona invites us into an “uncanny realm” where imagination, decay, and mystery intersect, offering a profound meditation on the landscapes we navigate and the narratives they conceal.
Biography
Mark McGreevy is a graduate of Ulster University, Belfast. His exhibitions include shows at The MAC, Belfast; VISUAL, Carlow; The F.E. McWilliam Gallery, Banbridge; The Golden Thread Gallery, Belfast; The Lab Gallery, Dublin; Third Space Gallery, Belfast; The Crawford Gallery, Cork; Katzen Art Centre, Washington, DC; The Glucksman, Cork, among others. McGreevy is the recipient of many awards including the Suki Tea Prize, Arts Council of Ireland Bursary Awards, Arts Council NI SIAP and The Freeland’s Foundation. He has been shortlisted for prestigious art prizes such as The AIB Award and BOC Emerging Artist Award and has participated on artist residency programmes at Centre Culturel Irlandais, Paris, and The Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin. His work is held many public and private collections.
Co Curated by Dr Louise Wallace and Feargal O’Malley
This exhibition, created by artist and University of Ulster researcher Brónagh Corr McNicholl, explores the evolving landscape of young masculinities in Derry/Londonderry following the Good Friday Agreement of 1998. In a city straddling the echoes of conflict and the potential of peace, young masculinities find themselves in a liminal space—caught between the remnants of traditional gender roles and the emerging fluidity of self-expression. Here, masculinity is no longer fixed or singular; it is diverse, evolving, and deeply shaped by the city’s complex history and social transformations.
This exhibition illuminates how these young people negotiate their place within this transitional space. Through photography, oral histories, and exhibition, the artist explores the complexities of their identities as they challenge established paradigms of manhood. The process of photography is complemented by digital post-production, where images are further manipulated and layered to reflect the fluidity and complexity of these evolving masculinities. Digital techniques allow for an engagement with the liminal nature of this journey, pushing the boundaries of traditional portraiture to reflect the internal and external transformations at play.
By focusing on these young people, the exhibition showcases the diverse, inclusive ways in which masculinity can be reimagined—capturing the liminal space where tradition meets transformation, and where new, more inclusive identities are being forged.
Samar Nezamabad (She/Her, b.1999) is a Belfast- and Limerick-based artist and curator exploring time, memory, and grief through analogue photography and installation.
Her work Phantasm reflects on losing her mother, portraying a home that feels both alive with memory and hollow with absence. Using expired film, she captures the physical remnants of grief, drawing from gothic influences to contrast the house’s decay with her own emotional landscape.
Aisling O’Beirn’s exhibition explores the relationship between art, science, and environmental change. Using sculpture, installation, and animation, she examines the impact of artificial light on ecosystems and humanity’s disconnection from the night sky. Featuring newly commissioned and reworked pieces, the exhibition highlights the celestial as an ecologically vital force.
Gabija Jocyte (b. 2003) is a Lithuanian and Belfast-based, installation and performance artist. Exploring the relationships that can exist between a viewer and exhibited object, her practice manifests through a hybrid of sculpture, found objects, writing and lens work to delve into these themes within immersive spaces.
With the persistent surveillance we are under, the work aims to invite self-reflection in the questioning of the performative. Building to bring awareness in how and why we look, while examining the methods in which creative practice can bring voyeuristic, emotive or intimate experiences.
A swift return for one of our favourite new Irish artists. Muireann Bradley is a 17 year old folk and blues guitarist and singer from Ballybofey in County Donegal. She specializes in performing acoustic fingerpicking country, piedmont, and ragtime blues styles from the 1920s, 30s and 40s as well as later folk, country and Americana.
Her influences include Blind Blake, Rev Gary Davis, Memphis Minnie, Elizabeth Cotten, Mississippi John Hurt, Stefan Grossman, Ari Eisinger, John Fahey and Roy Bookbinder.
Her father started teaching her guitar when she was nine and then in 2020, she received an offer from Josh Rosenthal of Tompkins Square Records to record an album after he saw her on youtube. In December 2023 this album “I kept these old Blues” was released to rave reviews.
Before the end of 2023 Muireann had played a live session on Highland Radio which went viral and received a standing ovation when she performed on Jools Holland’s annual New Year’s Eve Hootenanny.
In 2024 she did live sessions for Cerys Matthews’ BBC Radio 2 Blues Show, the Stephen McCauley show on BBC Radio Ulster and Ray Cuddihy’s Mise Sessions on RTE Radio 1. She also performed live on The Late Late Show and filmed sessions for Other Voices Anam in Ormond Castle and Acoustic Guitar Magazine.
“I Kept These Old Blues” reached number 1 on the Amazon download chart U.K. and got into the top 10 on the ITunes chart UK and broke into the Amazon New Folk Music Chart in the U.S. Not bad for a debut album in a genre now considered pretty uncommercial.
Hard copies of her album have been selling out everywhere leading to a second pressing with a third now on the way.
Muireann’s performances online have been viewed over 2 million times and her Irish and U.K. gigs have sold out.
Alongside his brother Maurice, Belfast DJ and producer Noel Watson has established himself as a pioneer in the intersection of music and fashion culture. Whether that’s sharing stages with The Beastie Boys, DJing with Frankie Knuckles or walking Commes Des Garcon with Jean Michel Basquiet, Noel has routinely been at the cutting edge of culture.
During the mid-eighties, the brothers quickly became involved in London’s early warehouse scene throwing parties during Soho’s DEMOB years whilst also holding down residencies at The DELIRIUM! Club and HEAVEN Nightclub. As a result, they were key players in the development of underground dance music culture.
Elsewhere, Noel curated films and Vitrines for the ICA Gallery’s OFF-SITE Exhibition @ Selfridges Old Hotel London, where he was included alongside 60 of London’s most celebrated creative luminaries from the last 3 decades
The Watson brothers mixed the iconic Electro Compilation series for Streetsounds, they hosted and played alongside the biggest names in Hip Hop and Electro/House music, including Run DMC, L.L Cool J, The Beastie Boys, Schoolly D, DJ Cheese, Chuck Brown and The Soul Searchers, Joyce Sims, Frankie Knuckles, Derek May, Marshall Jefferson, Virgo, Fingers Inc, Kym Mazell and Divine to name a few.
This led to the Watson brothers being credited as pioneers of the Electro/House/Warehouse Music scene (Noel features in the film “This Is Acid” and BBC 4’s recent ‘Can You Feel It, How Dance Music Conquered The World’ Documentary). He has mixed the music soundtracks for iconic fashion designers Alexander McQueen, Hussein Chalayan and Ally Capellino, soundtracked underground art house film ‘Starvecrow’ and worked on contemporary modern dance soundscapes alongside Jazzy B for Bunty Matthia’s Harlemation Dance Company at London’s Royal Festival Hall, Serpentine Gallery and Riverside studios.
Over the last 3 decades and to the present day, Noel has spread the word for Club Music and subculture Worldwide.
Having graced the wheels of steel at Clubs everywhere from Back To Basics, Cream, The Hacienda, Schoom, Pikes Ibiza, MK and The Limelight NYC, and Club Nights all over the World, he became a festival regular with slot’s alongside Todd Terry and DJ Sneak at Glastonbury for Bez’s Acid House, Wilderness Festival, Vintage Festival, Secret Garden Party and Ireland’s Electric Picnic.
His sets move from the classic House, Funk, Disco and Electro Sounds from the 80’s and 90’s, to contemporary Cosmic Disco and Re-Edits from today. He has Mixed and Produced Sets for Labels and Websites from the legendary Test Pressing to London’s Multi-Faceted NTS Radio and the highly respected Far-Out Recordings.
His musical production credits include working with spoken word artists Sonja Sohn and Saul Williams, as Fini Dolo, signed to Warner Brothers Arthrob record label, as well as a slew of bands and artists during the early noughties to today.
Currently his role as creative programmer at Belfast’s Black Box sees him providing an outlet for up and coming DJ’s/Artists/Bands in the city, whilst still performing at clubs as a legendary guest DJ.
His remix of a new MC G.L.O.B.E release from New York’s Soul Sonic Force is due for release soon on new Dublin imprint RESUME RECORDS, which also features mixes from the Egyptian Lover and forthcoming releases from 80’s NYC legends MC Sha-Rock and The World Famous Supreme Team.
Take a leisurely stroll on a Sunday afternoon to find out a little more about some of the historic pubs of the Cathedral Quarter area of Belfast.
Each pub, from Kelly’s Cellars to the Dirty Onion, The Duke of York to White’s Tavern, and The Morning Star to McHugh’s has fascinating tales and links to our city’s history that will be teased out. You’ll learn why several establishments claim the city’s ‘oldest pub’ title, which of them is in fact the oldest tavern, and what precisely the ‘oldest’ claims of some of the others relate to!
Exploring the oldest part of Belfast town before it became a city in 1888, you’ll hear about early merchants and importers, where secret societies met, the pick-up points for mail coaches, old jails, former whiskey warehouses, newspapers of long ago, and more.
The tour will start from outside Kelly’s Cellars at 2.00pm. The tour will end at 3.30pm outside McHugh’s, where you may choose to stay on to enjoy a drink or coffee and perhaps an afternoon traditional music session.
The tour will cover up to 1.5 miles and will take place whatever the weather, so please come prepared. No refreshments are included as part of the tour ticket.
Belle and Sebastian frontman Stuart Murdoch joins us for this in-conversation event about his debut, a life-affirming novel.
It’s the early 1990s in Glasgow, and Stephen – music loving romantic – has emerged from a lengthy hospital stay diagnosed with chronic fatigue syndrome, a little-understood disease that has robbed him of any prospects of work, a social life or independent living.
Meeting fellow strugglers, who the world seems to care less and less for, they form their own support group and try to get by as cheaply and as painlessly as possible. Finding that he has the ability to write songs, albeit in a slow and fledgling way, Stephen wakes to the possibility of a spiritual life beyond the everyday.
Leaving Glasgow in search of a cure in the mythic warmth of California, Stephen and his friend Richard float between hostels, sofas, and park benches. Could the trip really offer them both a new-world reinvention?
Stuart Murdoch is the lead singer and songwriter for the iconic Glasgow-based band Belle and Sebastian. Since forming in the mid-1990s, the band has released twelve studio albums to high acclaim, including If You’re Feeling Sinister and The Boy With the Arab Strap. In 2012 Murdoch scripted, composed, and directed the movie God Help the Girl.
Renowned for his cutting edge comedy and intrepid social commentary, Andrew has appeared on I’m a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here, he is also the recognisable voice of MTV’s hit show Ex On The Beach. As well as being a regular on Radio 4 as the host of Welcome to Wherever You Are, he’s frequently on The News Quiz, which he has also guest hosted.
As seen on Qi (BBC Two),Live At The Apollo (BBC One), Have I Got News For You (BBC One), Celebrity Juice (ITV2) Mock The Week (BBC Two) Conspiracy Road Trip (BBC3) and High Road Low Road (rté)..
Throughout his career, Andrew has had many sell-out shows at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe and has also performed at The Amnesty / Channel Four’s Secret Policeman’s Ball (alongside Eddie Izzard, Chevy Chase and Dylan Moran), Glastonbury, Kilkenny’s Cat Laughs, The HBO US Comedy Arts Festival in Las Vegas (alongside Jerry Seinfeld and Chris Rock), and several appearances at the Montreal Just for Laughs Festival.
James Joyce’s Grace is a tale of booze, bombast and religious confusion that brilliantly satirises the role of the Catholic Church in early twentieth century Irish life.
When struggling salesman, Tom Kernan, is found drunk and injured in a pub toilet and brought home in disgrace to his long suffering wife, his friends hatch a plot to save him from his errant ways.
This acclaimed Bewley’s Café Theatre production of the classic Dubliners story, features the actor and comedian, Terry O’Neill, who brings to life Joyce’s rare collection of characters and takes you on a hilarious journey from purgatory to paradise.
Dubliners, first published in 1914, is one of the great short story collections in the English language. By exploring the lives of his fellow Dublin citizens with unflinching realism, Joyce revealed truths both blasphemous and transcendent.
‘O’Neill does a terrific job of creating an excellent range of at least five different Dublin voices…. Dublin past is thus vividly conjured’ Irish Independent
‘O’Neill brings considerable energy and skill as the narrator’ Nomoreworkhorse
Niall McKenna’s first cookbook has been 20 years in the making, and What’s It All About? spills over with passion for this place, its people and its produce.
What’s It All About? is a carefully curated collection of 140 dishes that have been customer favourites in his five restaurants. It’s a beautifully embossed white hard-backed book, which Niall says he wants readers to “not keep clean”.
From favourites of chili crab linguine and honey madeleines to apple and blackberry crumble tart and soda farl, as well as a range of stocks, sauces and dressings, Niall believes the recipes are achievable for all ages and that people shouldn’t be afraid to give it a go.
He is keen to stress that What’s It All About? isn’t just a cookbook, but “a dander” through 20 years of Belfast hospitality, including striking images of iconic Belfast landmarks and the art that has adorned the walls of his restaurants, and most of all it’s a homage to the often-underrated simplicity of enjoying good times together.
“I genuinely believe that there are few places in the world more perfectly suited to making and enjoying great food. We have all the ingredients right here — the produce, great people and awesome places. ‘That’s what it’s all about’,” adds Niall, explaining the inspiration behind the book’s title.
Join us for a fascinating insight into the making of a successful restaurant and Niall talks about his life with BBC’s Kathy Clugston.
‘This production plays to the versatility in Claire Keegan’s language, with which she fills her simple tale with maximum drama.’Jackie Hayden.
Claire Keegan’s Booker Prize-nominated novel Small Things Like These, an unforgettable story of hope and heroism, is brought to the stage by Four Rivers January with Andrew Bennett (Seán in the Oscar-nominated The Quiet Girl/ An Cailin Ciuin) accompanied by new music from singer-songwriter Eleanor McEoy (A Woman’s Heart).
Described as ‘resonant and deeply moving’ by Hilary Mantel, Small Things Like These is set in an Irish rural town in the 1980s in the run up to Christmas: as coal merchant Bill Furlong does his rounds, he discovers a girl locked away in terrible conditions in the local convent.
Unlike the silent majority, he decides to do something about it.
This staged reading of Small Things Like These is performed masterly by Andrew Bennett. One of the finest actors of his generation, Andrew recently completed a new series for Sky Originals, Small Town, Big Story, and Blackshore for the BBC.
Eleanor McEvoy performs original music she composed for Small Things Like These. Her critically acclaimed canon of work spans sixteen albums, with numerous cover versions of her songs by Emmylou Harris, Mary Black, Phil Coulter, Eliza Carthy, Jack L, and Saint Sister.
Presented by Four Rivers, Small Things Like These is directed by former Artistic Director of the Abbey Theatre, Ben Barnes. Recent directing credits include The Last Stand (Four Rivers), Madama Butterfly (INO), Lights Out (Four Rivers) and Jim Nolan’s new play Castel Gandolfo (Four Rivers).
In this compelling and moving solo play, Downton Abbey’s Ruairi Conaghan tells the story of the murder of a loved one and the lasting and unpredictable trauma that flowed from it.
At a time when the violent legacies of Northern Ireland’s recent past have never been more important to talk about, this acclaimed show uses storytelling, song, poetry, humour, cinema and Shakespeare to tell this courageous, joyous, uplifting tale of recovery.
Performed with raw, courageous, soul-bearing honesty. If we can find empathy, there is always hope.
Selected Edinburgh Fringe reviews:
5 ***** “ I was profoundly utterly moved by Conaghans compelling play. An honest, important representation of the healing power of Theatre” THREEWEEKS EDINBURGH
5***** “ A master storyteller,using his skills with language to induce tears and laughter in equal amounts,” ONE4REVIEW
“ An extraordinary solo performance with a deeply human story that resonates long after leaving the venue.” FRINGE REVIEW
4**** “A fearless performance that comes straight from the heart” THE LIST
4**** “ Conaghan is a gifted and charismatic storyteller keeping the audience hanging on every word.” BROADWAY BABY
4**** “ Conaghan’s brave story makes every emotion come to the surface” ENTERTAINMENT NOW
4**** “ Heartfelt, full of love, emotional, moving and rendered with grace” NORTH WEST END UK
Craig Oldham has been named as one of the most influential designers working in the UK and has written books on a range of topics including education, culture, and politics. 40 years on from the miners’ strike of 1984-85, Oldham re-published In Loving Memory of Work through Rough Trade Books to critical acclaim with director Ken Loach declaring of the book that ‘every University should place an order.’
This exhibition of posters designed by Oldham and his socially engaged design practice, Office of Craig, modestly explore the political projects and views across a range of subjects and moments – from Covid-29 to campaigning against the London Garden Bridge. The work provides testimony to the political role of designers and their importance in making and communicating messages, and whether that work is deemed commercial or personal it still has political implications.
Craig Oldham will give a talk – ‘The Tools of Protest’ – at Ulster University on 24th January. Tickets and more details available here.
A Q and Awith Linsey Young on the award winning exhibition catalogue that accompanies the exhibition Women in Revolt: Art, Activism and the Women’s Movement 1970 – 1990, hosted by Ciara Hickey.
The Women in Revolt catalogue is a timely exploration of the work and lived experiences of a postwar generation of women artists that have largely been omitted from art historical narratives, Women in Revolt! surfaces the wealth and diversity of work created in the UK during the 1970s and 80s, a period of seismic social and political change.
Featuring essays on feminist film distribution, the visibility of Black and South Asian women artists, Section 28 and the AIDS pandemic, Greenham Common and the peace movement, and the intersection of punk, feminism and art, Women in Revolt! celebrates the full diversity of what was a highly creative, politically engaged and determined community of women that paved the way for future generations and, ultimately, changed the face of British culture.
The book won the inaugural Association of Art Historians curatorial writing award with the jury commenting ‘Though a catalogue of an exhibition, it achieved its aim of serving as an accessible standalone publication, almost, as one panellist commented, and exhibition in its own right. The research mobilised the authority of the previous generation of feminist art historians and artists in an exemplary way’.
Come and join us for the first ever Out to Lunch Céilí. An afternoon of céilí dancing, set dancing and 2-hand dancing with one of Ireland’s top Céili Callers.
No previous experience needed as full instruction will be given throughout.
There’ll be dancing, sandwiches and a cup of tea in your hand.
Pauline Black, lead singer of 2-Tone hit band The Selecter, tells her extraordinary life story in the same frank manner that helped shape her as an iconic, era-defining female musician.
Pauline had a difficult upbringing and joining the 2-Tone music movement in 1979 was the perfect catalyst; enabling her to explore and express all sides of herself. Looking back at her own ground-breaking experience in this feature documentary, Pauline traces how her legacy came about and how it is relevant to the world today, especially where society pushes the boundaries of gender, politics, race and identity.
Pauline, of mixed Nigerian and Jewish heritage, was adopted into a white family in Essex in the 50’s. Her upbringing was defined by casual racism from within her own family. Pauline went on to find her own identity in the Coventry 2-Tone music scene and The Selecter was a reflection of working-class life in Thatcher’s Britain, their music as social reportage and with an ethos of anti-racism and anti-sexism.
This is a cinematic and visceral documentary mixing intimate actuality, archive and interviews and a storming soundtrack. Contributors include Arthur ‘Gaps’ Hendrickson, Don Letts, Skin, Damon Albarn, Rhoda Dakar, Lynval Golding, Mykaell Riley, Sonia Boyce and Jools Holland.
1985’s Rain Dogs has been hailed as one of the most important albums of Tom Waits’ career. The middle child between 1983’s Swordfishtrombones and 1987’s Frank’s Wild Years, it is a loose concept album about “the urban dispossessed” of New York City.
Join us at the Oh Yeah Music Centre as part of the Out To Lunch Festival on Friday 10th January as we celebrate 40 years of Rain Dogs.
We’ll be assembling the fantastic musicians from our 2023 Swordfishtrombones event, Kyron Bourke, Duke Special, Clara Tracey and Mike Mormecha who will offer their spin on this classic album.
The tickets are £20, strictly limited and unreserved seating. Bar service available throughout. 18+
“Every lyric was an effortless rhyme you could only dream of ever writing.”– Thom Yorke
“..bony and menacingly beautiful.” – Rolling Stone
The White Horse Guitar Club – renowned for their soulful blend of Americana and roots music infused with an Irish heartbeat, continue to captivate audiences worldwide.
Their rendition of Townes Van Zandt’s classic, “If I Needed You,” has amassed over 1.5 million views on YouTube, catching the attention of BBC 6 presenter Cerys Matthews, who featured them on her popular Sunday radio show, praising them as “…taking Ireland, and the rest of the world by storm.”
Favourites on Irish airwaves, the band’s music is regularly played by renowned presenters Fiachna Ó Braonáin, John Creedon, and Tom Dunne. The band’s journey is not just about music, as member Joe Carey states, “The band is very much based around camaraderie, friendship, and joy, sometimes a missing facet of bands. It’s one we hold very dear. Musically, we could be considered a choral band; voices are central to what we do, all 11 of us sing in unison, harmony, and melody. The fact that there are also 11 guitars adds to the unique sound and interpretation of the songs that we carry. On paper, it shouldn’t work, but it does.”
The White Horse Guitar Club is a diverse group, comprising individuals from various walks of life – from a stonemason to an engineer, a photographer to a teacher. Yet, they all share a common passion for singing, playing, and performing live, forging strong connections with their audiences in Ireland and beyond.
The White Horse Guitar Club’s music resonates deeply with a growing fanbase, reflecting their belief in the power of music to unite and inspire change. On the back of 2 sold out national tours the band are really looking forward to playing at the Out to Lunch festival.
“There is an authenticity to The White Horse Guitar Club’s performance in which the musicians allow themselves to take all the risks while delivering a very professional concert. This has the great effect of making the experience a very personal one for everyone in attendance. Good for the heart and soul – the music knows no borders.” Michael D. Higgins
1985’s Rain Dogs has been hailed as one of the most important albums of Tom Waits’ career. The middle child between 1983’s Swordfishtrombones and 1987’s Frank’s Wild Years, it is a loose concept album about “the urban dispossessed” of New York City.
Join us at the Oh Yeah Music Centre as part of the Out To Lunch Festival on Saturday 11 January as we celebrate 40 years of Rain Dogs.
We’ll be assembling the fantastic musicians from our 2023 Swordfishtrombones event, Kyron Bourke, Duke Special, Clara Tracey and Mike Mormecha who will offer their spin on this classic album.
The tickets are £20, strictly limited and unreserved seating. Bar service available throughout. 18+
“Every lyric was an effortless rhyme you could only dream of ever writing.” – Thom Yorke
“..bony and menacingly beautiful.” – Rolling Stone
Formed in Gillingham in 2020, The Zac Schulze Gang are an electrifying blues-rock trio built on the playing of front man Zac Schulze and joined by bassist Ant Greenwell and drummer Ben Schulze.
The gang create their signature sound by blending rock and blues with influences from punk, funk, country, jazz, soul, metal and pop.
After earning a reputation as one of the hardest working bands in the country, they are now touring internationally across the UK, Ireland, mainland Europe and North America. They have toured and shared the bill with artists such as Samantha Fish, Jesse Dayton, Eddie 9V, Nine Below Zero, Aynsley Lister, Band of Friends and The Cinelli Brothers.
The gang have been nominated multiple times in both the 2023 and 2024 UK Blues Awards, winning the UK Blues Emerging Band of the Year award for 2024. They were also invited to play at Eric Clapton’s Crossroads Festival 2023 in Los Angeles and made an appearance at Fairport’s Cropredy Convention in 2024 to large acclaim.
With a debut studio album on the horizon in 2025, the Zac Schulze Gang are setting up to be a future powerhouse of their genre.
“The Morricone Experience” is a tribute to the late maestro of film music who wrote over 400 film compositions in his lifetime, including the scores for audience favourites “A Fistful of Dollars”, “The Good the Bad and the Ugly”,” Cinema Paradiso”, and “The Mission”.
The ensemble comprises acclaimed solo international artists residing in Ireland. These include Dundalk locals Annemarie McGahon (viola), Francesca De Nardi (violin), Davide Forti (cello) and Annalisa Monticelli (piano) and Dubliners Katy Kelly (soprano) and Morgan Crowley (tenor).
Featured on RTÈ’s Arena, this ensemble played to a sold-out crowd in the Pavilion Theatre & Castletown House and are touring theatres throughout Ireland until the end of 2025.
Landless are Ruth Clinton, Meabh Meir, Sinead Lynch and Lily Power. They sing unaccompanied traditional songs from Irish, Scottish, English and American traditions in close four-part harmony. Their repertoire features songs of love, death and lamentation, as well as work songs, shape-note hymns and more recently-penned folk songs.
Landless have performed in a variety of settings, both in Ireland and abroad, and are closely involved with traditional singing sessions in Dublin and Belfast.
Landless released their second album, Lúireach, in 2024. Working again with John ‘Spud’ Murphy (Lankum/Katie Kim), this album has received widespread critical acclaim and features subtle instrumentation as well as unaccompanied singing. They released their debut album Bleaching Bones in March 2018.
Press for Lúireach:
“Four female singers whose voices seem to rise from the sacra of their spines, emerging from their bodies in heavenly flight or heavy drones …. Long-term Celtic music fans should flock to them – they’re a deliciously doomier Clannad – while devotees of Ireland’s current, brilliant scene should also respond to their stunning intensity.” Guardian Folk Album of the Month *****
“Instrumentals are sparse – little strokes, plucks and drones deployed to gently push the song’s emotion, rather than as ornamentation. The focus here is on the band’s extraordinary voices. Placed front and centre in the mix, they weave in and out of each other, latticing together to create a shapeshifting whole that sweeps elegantly from low, dark drones to transcendent highs.” The Quietus
“… a four-part harmony group who – on their second LP – come across like Macbeth’s Weird Sisters crashing a Sandy Denny séance. Lankum’s Cormac MacDiarmada guests as trad tunes get a Marble Index makeover: The Grey Selkie Of Sule Skerry and The Wounded Hussar in particular could stun a bat at 30 paces. Unearthly.” **** MOJO
The irrepressible Lucy Porter bounces back into action with a show all about regrets. Frank Sinatra had too few to mention, but Lucy’s got hundreds, and she’s prepared to go into graphic detail about all of them. Disastrous dates, professional calamities, ruined friendships and parenting fails. Lucy describes all the mistakes she’s made, works out why they happened, and ponders how her life would have turned out if she’d acted differently.
Lucy looks at the things we might all collectively regret – not sticking to the work-life balance we strove for during lockdown, not realising that clapping for the NHS wouldn’t be enough to save it, allowing people we thought were quite fun on TV to become politicians.
How does regret tie in with guilt and shame? As a middle-aged, middle-class, left-leaning ex-Catholic, guilt is one of Lucy’s top five hobbies (along with going to the garden centre, doing jigsaws, making bread and watching subtitled foreign dramas on Netflix. She’s also ashamed of all these hobbies.)
It’s not all negative though. If you regret something, you can use it to change your ways: see the thing you regret as your rock bottom, and let it spur you on to become a better person. Lucy looks at how she can use shameful or annoying things from her past to change her future.
Lucy regrets volunteering at the school fete when her kids were younger, because now she’s committed to being the Hook a Duck Lady twice a year for the rest of her life. Maybe she could learn to say No a bit more? /b>
“Impeccably punch-lined anecdotes… Genuinely delightful” **** The Telegraph
The Ulster Orchestra is delighted to return to Out To Lunch with a programme for a small group of its wind players.
Amongst the musical gems for chamber ensemble, you’ll hear Trois pièces brèves by Jacques Ibert, a work from Jazz Age Paris with an unexpected local connection, Malcolm Arnold’s quirky, witty arrangements of Three Sea Shanties (listen out for the drunken sailor!) and György Ligeti’s colourful and whimsical Six Bagatelles.
The work of Belfast composer Neil Martin has been performed across the globe, from Ground Zero to Mostar Bridge from the Royal Albert Hall to the International Space Station.
Neil is simultaneously a producer, an arranger, a musician but above all an artist. He thrives on collaboration with performers, writers, and thinkers from all walks of life.
This feature documentary for TG4 / BBC Gaeilge, co-funded by NI Screen’s ILBF, follows Neil through grief, celebration and new ambitions asking whether the work of being an artist is ever really finished.
Charlotte Brontë, who dazzled the world with some of literature’s most vital and richly-drawn characters, spent her brief but extraordinary life in search of love. She eventually found it with Arthur Bell, a reserved yet passionate Irishman. After marrying, the pair honeymooned in Ireland – a glimmer of happiness in a life shadowed by tragedy.
That moment of joy was destined to be short-lived however, as Brontë died just nine months into their marriage. Her genius, and the aura of mystery surrounding her, meant she’d been mythologised even within her own lifetime – a process which only intensified after her death.
Observed through the eyes of Mary Nicholls – who encountered Charlotte on that fateful journey to Ireland, and who went on to wed her widower Arthur –Charlotte is a story of three lives irrevocably intertwined. Bound by passion and obsession, friendship and loss, loyalty and deception – this a story of Brontë’s short but pivotal time in Ireland as never before told.
Martina Devlin’s enthralling new novel Charlotte weaves back and forth through Charlotte’s life, reflecting on the myths built around her by those who knew her, those who thought they knew her, and those who longed to know her. Above all, this is a story of fiction: who creates it, who lives it, who owns it.
‘Charlotte is elegant and sophisticated but also completely gripping. Martina Devlin brilliantly creates the world around this iconic writer, with characters who have the power to surprise and compel. I loved it.’Emily Hourican
‘In Charlotte, the raw gold of Charlotte Brontë’s marriage to Arthur Nicholls has been wrought in a wonderful artefact; this is a beautiful novel full of mystery, intrigue and story.’ Carlo Gébler
‘A powerful and compelling novel that expertly imagines the lives and times of those closest to Brontë, and captivates the reader with its cleverness and eloquence.’Mary Costello
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Martina Devlin has written novels, plays and short stories. She has won the Royal Society of Literature’s V.S. Pritchett Prize, a Hennessy Literary Award, and been shortlisted three times for the Irish Book Awards.
She writes a weekly current affairs column for the Irish Independent for which she has won a number of prizes, including National Newspapers of Ireland commentator of the year. She holds a PhD in literary practice from Trinity College Dublin.
Tenx9 is teaming up with Out to Lunch Festival again for our first event of 2025 and our theme is Moving. Get in touch with your true stories at tenx9.com/submissions and join us in the Black Box on January 17 2024.
Tenx9 is a storytelling evening where nine people have up to ten minutes each to tell a true story from their own life. It was created in 2011 by Paul Doran & Pádraig Ó Tuama in the Black Box in Belfast. It aims to strip away the barriers that prevent people from sharing their experiences. It is always free of charge.
Belfast Harpist, Ursula Burns Launches her first record of contemporary harp compositions, “The Secret Melodies of Trees”. The album was produced by Donal O’Connor at Redbox studios in 2024.
After 30 years of performance, shows, albums and gigs, Ursula wanted to celebrate the milestone with her first instrumental harp album.
Supported by the Arts Council, the collection is recorded in the original ethos of Belfast Harper’s Assemble where the intent was to demonstrate the technique and composition of the harpers.
This is the Belfast Launch of the Record. Ursula looks forward to unearthing her secret melodies in her home town.
Katharine Timoney is a jazz singer-songwriter from Belfast. Her music combines elements of vocal jazz and retro soul drawing inspiration from powerhouse voices such as Nina Simone and Aretha Franklin.
In 2023, the title track of her EP ‘Life Came into Colour’ won The UK Songwriting Contest (Jazz category) following significant radio support from JazzFM UK and Spotify who included it in their playlist, ‘Best Vocal Jazz of 2022’.
In May 2024, she released new music with her single ‘It Won’t Always Be This Way’ shortly after performing at Cheltenham Jazz Festival. Katharine’s next record is due for release in 2025.
Mancunian electronic pioneers 808 State, known best for genre defining records including: Ninety, Gorgeous, ex:el and Don Solaris, are inspired equally by the haunting of their home city’s industrial past (and, for that matter, the influence of classic Detroit techno) but still remain true to their career-long focus on what’s to come next…
“We’re trying to make a future for other people to immerse themselves in,” says Graham Massey. “That’s always been a big part of 808 State: these kind of landscapes of futurism.”
Originally formed by Massey, Martin Price and Gerald Simpson in 1988, the group’s early work was a prominent influence on the UK’s burgeoning acid house scene.
808 State’s first album – Newbuild – is now regarded as a milestone in UK electronica. Quadrastate followed this and included Pacific State which became an end-of-night anthem at the Haçienda. The track broke out of the dance underground when it was picked up by daytime BBC Radio 1.
The band pushed against dance-celebrity culture with intentionally minimalist record sleeves and a reluctance to self-promote. In 1989 Paul Morley signed the band to the ZTT label, and the first fruit of this partnership, the album Ninety, was awarded 10 out of 10 by the NME. The Guardian declared that with this record, “808 State mapped out the future of club music, utilising techno, ambient and rock…”
Now in 2024/25, the band continue to perform across the world, led by original founding member Graham Massey, with their music continuing to inspire and influence crowds wherever they go.
Brìghde Chaimbeul is one of the most exciting musical minds in the world of Celtic folk today. She’s a master of the Scottish smallpipes – the bellows-blown, mellower and more emotive cousin to the famous Great Highland bagpipes – and she’s taken them to the global stage.
A native Gaelic speaker from the Isle of Skye, Brìghde roots her music in her language and culture. She rose to prominence as a prodigy of traditional music, but has since begun a journey to take the smallpipes into uncharted territory.
She draws inspiration from the world of interconnected piping traditions, including those from Eastern Europe, Cape Breton and Ireland, and her most recent album brings in influence from ambient, avant garde and electronic music.
One can talk about Brìghde’s awards (BBC Young Folk Award; BBC Horizons Award; Songlines Top of the World…) and her wide array of collaborators (Caroline Polachek, Colin Stetson, Gruff Rhys, Aidan O’Rourke…) but after it all, her music speaks for itself.
Haunting, entrancing, breathtaking, beautiful – this open-eared, understatedly virtuosic performer is transforming and creating new definitions for Scottish folk in the 21st century.
“Simultaneously ancient and modern, profound and direct” – The Guardian
“Unique, exciting and forward-looking”The Quietus
“Mesmerising” – Mark Radcliffe, BBC Radio 2
“Exciting, unusual and gorgeous” – Songlines
“Enchanting … Chaimbeul has an ability to bring a strangely modern, almost electronic, sound from this most traditional of instruments.”The Wire
Fiercely independent, Nashville-based recording artist, Ron Pope, carved his niche in the digital era’s early days with his breakout hit, “A Drop in the Ocean,” which has amassed over 1 billion streams, earning platinum status in the US, alongside double platinum status in Sweden.
His prolific songwriting is a natural fit for Music City’s Americana, roots, and country communities, garnering praise from publications such as Rolling Stone, Billboard, CMT, Relix, and The Tennessean.
With each release, including his most recent album, Inside Voices, released in June 2023, Pope continues to captivate audiences with his raw authenticity and profound storytelling, soul-stirring melodies, and introspective lyricism.
Beyond his own musical endeavours, Pope writes and produces for other artists, and serves as a guiding light for aspiring musicians navigating the ever-changing landscape of today’s music industry. Pope has been steadily releasing singles in 2024 that will culminate in his upcoming album in 2025.
“…Pope’s ability to express the sadness and uncertainty, doubts and desires that accompany life’s challenges and transitions translates on a universal level.” – American Songwriter
(Arrive 10 mins before at Leonardo Hotel Belfast on Great Victoria Street in Belfast city centre)
Join your guide Andrew Johnston (of Alternative Ulstours) on a walking tour of historic Belfast cinema sites, from luxury picture palaces to fleeting fleapits!
Step back in time to the city’s golden age of nightlife, when dozens of characterful movie houses entertained the masses!
Along the way, you’ll find out about the Belfast church mission that gave celluloid sermons, the venue where a car bomb brought down the final curtain, the posh movie theatre that allowed unique souvenirs, the Belfast’s billiards bar that took a shot at the silver screen and the only place brave enough to show the original Dracula!
Please note:
• The walking tour starts at the Leonardo Hotel, GreatVictoria Street.
• Please arrive 10 minutes before the scheduled start time
• The tour will last two hours and cover around one and a half miles on mainly flat, even ground
• The tour ends at the Avenue Cinema in CastleCourt Shopping Centre on Royal Avenue in Belfast city centre
• The tour will go ahead in all weathers, so please dress accordingly and stay hydrated
• There are public toilets near the start and end points, and we can make a toilet stop approximately halfway through the tour if required.
• The route is fully accessible, but please inform us in advance of any mobility issues
• Your guide is a professional Level 4 tour guide and former newspaper entertainment journalist
• The tour is fully insured through Tour Guides NI
Out to Lunch is delighted to present the Belfast launch of Rosemary Jenkinson’s debut dystopian novel ‘The Memorisers’ published by Arlen House.
The Memorisers is a blistering portrayal of World War III and a satire on the West’s current assault on free speech. Jo is a journalist reporting from the front line of a war-torn country. One day, she wakes up in hospital after being caught up in a drone attack. The problem is she can’t remember the story she was covering…
Rosemary Jenkinson is an award-winning short story author and playwright with a swathe of literary successes to her credit. She received a Major Artist Award from the Arts Council of Northern Ireland and was artist-in-residence at the Lyric Theatre Belfast and Leuven College for Irish Studies. She is currently Royal Literary Fund Fellow at Queen’s University.
As research for The Memorisers, Rosemary travelled five times to war-torn Ukraine. Spending time in the frontline city of Kherson and experiencing Zaporizhzhia under drone attack has provided Rosemary with the impetus to imagine the Russo-Ukrainian war spreading West.
A vivid, urgent and compelling story about the tenacity of memory. In the apocalyptic and bookless world conjured up by Rosemary Jenkinson, words have power – and remembering forbidden words becomes an act of resistance. – Martina Devlin
Natalie Haynes is a writer and broadcaster and – according to the Washington Post – a rock star mythologist.
She is the author of novels The Amber Fury, shortlisted for the McIlvanney Prize; The Children of Jocasta, A Thousand Ships, which was shortlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction in 2020, Stone Blind which was long listed for the Women’s Prize in 2023. Her non-fiction books include The Ancient Guide to Modern Life and Pandora’s Jar and Divine Might which were best sellers in both the UK and the US.
Natalie has spoken on the modern relevance of the classical world on three continents, from Cambridge to Chicago to Auckland.
She has written and presented ten series of the BBC Radio 4 show, Natalie Haynes Stands Up for the Classics.
Dani Larkin is a songwriter, producer and multi-instrumentalist currently based in Belfast. Her debut album, Notes For A Maiden Warrior (2021), received widespread critical acclaim and catapulted Larkin to the international stage with performances at SXSW and WOMEX as well as tours with Snow Patrol, Lisa O’Neill, Glen Hansard, and Rufus Wainright.
Larkin has since collaborated with the Ulster Orchestra and RTÉ Concert Orchestra and released Walking With Natives (2023) which saw her tour Australia, Korea, Finland, Canada, Ireland, the UK and a run of sold out shows at the Irish Arts Centre NYC.
With television appearances on BBC 1, Virgin Media Ireland’s Fanning At Whelans, Canada’s CTV, alongside radio performances on BBC Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour and RTÉ Radio 1, Larkin has accompanied her songwriting prowess with insights into story and song taking the listener on a pathway to the beyond.
With a profound performance at the RTÉ Folk Awards coupled with her tours in Europe, Australia, Asia and North America, Larkin has been heralded as a ‘must-see’ live performer on the national and international stage. Described as a ‘beguiling’ and ‘powerful’, songwriter and ‘virtuoso guitarist’ (Songlines Magazine) Larkin’s live performances enrapture audiences within a seamlessly woven narrative within carefully considered sonic landscape.
** “Hotly tipped singer-songwriter” – Mark Radcliff BBC Radio 2
“Electrifying singer-songwriter and folk award nominee” – The Irish Times
Unfortunately due to illness, tonight’s performance by Catherine has had to be postponed.
We will be in touch with ticket-holders to advise about refunds/rescheduled show.
Thank you.
Edinburgh Comedy Award nominee Catherine Bohart’s back and ready to talk about her feelings (again)…
Join one of the UK and Ireland’s most-exciting comics for a hilariously twisted second coming-of-age saga as she reckons with death-obsessed parents, queer reproduction and how adulthood, frankly, isn’t living up to her expectations.
Host of hit podcast Trusty Hogs. As seen and heard on Live at the Apollo, The Mash Report, Immaculate (Amazon Prime special), Mock the Week and The News Quiz.
Nominee: Edinburgh Comedy Awards 2024 Best Show
Praise for Again, With Feelings:
‘Firecracker hour… her best yet’ ★★★★★ The Guardian
‘A very endearing hour of entertainment’ ★★★★★ Reviews Hub
‘Hilarious… a funny and revealing show’ ★★★★ The Scotsman
‘Naturally funny… utterly consumable’ ★★★★ The Times
‘Blistering execution and rapid-fire gags… a gem’ ★★★★ The Age
‘A stand-up in such command of her material… a real delight’★★★★ Chortle
John Craigie has mastered the art of creating live shows that feel more like intimate conversations than performances. Infusing humor, wit, and poignant storytelling, his shows are a space where audience members feel like old friends.
Whether he’s headlining solo or sharing the stage with longtime collaborators, Craigie’s ability to make his crowd laugh, reflect, and connect is second to none. As he prepares to release Greatest Hits… Just Kidding… Live – No Hits, his latest live album captures the warmth and spontaneity of these memorable nights.
As a tried-and-true performer, he has regularly sold out solo tours in addition to hitting the road with the likes of Langhorne Slim, Brett Dennen, Mason Jennings, Bella White and Jack Johnson. He has picked up fans with sets at Newport Folk Festival, Pickathon, Edmonton Folk Festival, and High Sierra Music Festival.
Giving back as much as possible, he notably launched the #KeepItWarm Tour during the holidays. By donating $1 from every ticket sale, this headline run has raised money for regional non-profits with the goal of fighting food insecurity.
An avowed Beatles acolyte, he has performed acoustic renditions of the albums Abbey Road and Let It Be live in front of packed crowds and partnered with Record Store Day for limited-edition vinyl releases of those concerts..
Simultaneously, his catalog has continued to reel in tens of millions of streams fueled by favorites such as “I Am California,” “Highway Blood,” “Don’t Ask,” and “Microdose.”
Maintaining a prolific pace, 2024’s Pagan Church saw him join forces with TK & The Holy Know-Nothings. Among many highlights, it logged six weeks at #1 on the Americana Radio Albums Chart. Inciting critical applause, Pop Matters raved, “All of Craigie’s songs are made of something truly ineffable,” and American Highways assured, “Along with excellent musicianship across the album, there are genuinely pretty moments on ‘Pagan Church.’”
To John, the live albums seek to achieve a sound where the listener will feel like they’re in the venue, sitting and experiencing the show with the rest of the crowd.
After multiple sell-out lunchtime shows, we’re extending the concept this year by hosting an evening performance of fabulous opera with a light supper of sandwiches. Join us in the Black Box for a fabulous hour of glamour and sparkle.
NI Opera is delighted to present this performance of cabaret classics as part of the Out To Lunch Festival.
Chicago-based bluegrass outfit Special Consensus has covered a lot of musical territory in the half a century since banjoist Greg Cahill founded the band in 1975.
Two-time GRAMMY nominees and six-time International Bluegrass Music Association winners, the group has amassed an expansive discography of over 20 releases including 2020’s CHICAGO BARN DANCE which highlighted the important role the Windy City played in the early development of bluegrass music.
With their latest release GREAT BLUE NORTH, Special Consensus turns their gaze northward, across the great lakes, to Canada. The album offers a thoughtfully curated collection of well-known and obscure songs from Canadian writers and features collaborations with some Canada’s most notable bluegrass and folk musicians.
Taken as a whole, GREAT BLUE NORTH expands Special Consensus’s musical footprint, furthering their legacy as Chicago’s premiere bluegrass ambassadors and establishing them as torchbearers for the international reach of bluegrass music. Cahill adds: We hope the international bluegrass community will enjoy the new music and join us in celebrating the fact that bluegrass music truly has no borders!”
GREAT BLUE NORTH is the 21st Special Consensus recording. The Gordon Lightfoot song from the album “Alberta Bound” received the 2023 IBMA Collaborative Recording of the Year Award and the accompanying video won the IBMA Music Video Of The Year Award in September 2024.
Special Consensus have been coming to Ireland biennially since the mid ‘90’s and have established an extensive legion of fans over the years. Always a special Out to Lunch show.
Bob Dylan was born in Duluth, Minnesota 83 years ago and is widely regarded as the world’s greatest living songwriter. Tony Villiers was born in Co. Armagh several decades later and Dylan has always been a touchstone and towering presence in his life.
Today’s performance will feature many of those great Dylan songs that have inspired Tony, the stories behind the songs and what they meant to a young man growing up in Armagh in the 80’s and 90’s and right up to the present day.
“Dylan and The Band in The Big Pink basement, after a couple of bottles of red” R2 Magazine
“You want your support to be good…but not this good!” Mark Kermode, BBC & The Dodge Brothers
“…frantic, dirty blues sounds of the 60’s Reeperbahn. Other more tender moments drip with an ‘Astral Weeks’ like sweet cherry wine” Folk & Tumble
“All the attributes of a modern day folk music hero” Fatea, David Dee Moore
“Superb songwriting rooted in a great tradition.” Ralph McLean, BBC Radio Ulster
A banner-maker and trade unionist for the best part of 40 years, Ed Hall’s work shot to artistic fame as a collaborator with Jeremy Deller in 1999.
Ed’s banners have given visibility and voice to social issues as they have arisen, and his passion for symbolising justice and activism are evident in his hand-stitched works. The skill and craft of creating beautiful, vibrant and easily recognisable iconography has long continued and remains part of a tradition of activism through visual arts in society today.
The conversation will explore his interest in the history of banner-making in Northern Ireland, and share his knowledge of how banners have been used since the 14th century and their vital presence in protests today. Ed will also temporarily exhibit some of his own hand-crafted banners throughout the lobby at the venue for one night only.
Ed will be in conversation with designer and Rough Trade Books Creative Director, Craig Oldham, a fellow visual activist, in advance of his talk The Tools of Protest on 24th January in the same venue.
Old friends join forces to present an evening of acoustic roots music. Multi Grammy winner Tim O’Brien has traveled the world for the past 50 years with his own mix of American folk, bluegrass, blues, and Celtic sounds. Now O’Brien and his wife, mandolinist and singer Jan Fabricius team up with iconic traditional players Seamie O’Dowd and Dermot Byrne for Irish dates early in 2025.
O’Brien is a preferred sideman for people like Mark Knopfler and Steve Earle, and his original songs have been covered by Garth Brooks and the Dixie Chicks. Notable recordings include the Dylan covers of “Red on Blonde”, the Grammy winning folk of “Fiddler’s Green”, and the Appalachian / Irish collaboration “The Crossing”.
In recent years Tim’s main performing and songwriting partner is his wife Jan Fabricius who adds her vocals and mandolin to O’Brien’s guitar, fiddle, and vocal. Their sweet vocal blend and co-written songs feature prominently on the recent O’Brien releases “He Walked On” and “Cup of Sugar”.
Joining the Nashville duo are renowned Irish musicians Dermot Byrne on accordion and Seamie O’Dowd on guitar, fiddle, bouzouki and vocals. O’Dowd, from Sligo, and Byrne, from Donegal, grew up in musical families and went on to renown in the trad world in their collaborations with Dervish (O’Dowd), Altan (Byrne), and a veritable who’s who of the genre.
In concert, the quartet features selections from O’Brien’s extensive repertoire of traditional and original music, with regular steps into the spotlight by Byrne, Fabricius and O’Dowd.
Emily Barker is an award-winning singer-songwriter, best known as the writer and performer of the theme to the hugely successful BBC crime drama ‘Wallander’ starring Kenneth Branagh.
Her last album, ‘A Dark Murmuration of Words’ is lyrically probing, by turns both dark and optimistic, Barker searches for meaning through the deafening clamour of fake news and algorithmically filtered conversation, delivering an exploration of the grand themes of our age.
Barker has released music and toured as a solo artist as well as with various bands and collaborations, most notably with Frank Turner, and has written for TV and film, including composing the soundtrack for ‘Hector’.
‘Fragile as Humans’ is scheduled for release on May 3rd 2024 through Everyone Sang/Kartel Music Group. The album will also feature earlier singles: the vast, cinematic ‘Wild to be Sharing This Moment’ and the meditative, crestfallen ‘Loneliness’.
Liz Stringer
Liz Stringer’s notoriously powerful live performances and melodically rich, story-based songs have earned her a unique place among the most important Australian songwriters of the modern era.
We’ve sadly had to cancel this event due to weather conditions. Ticket holders will be fully refunded.
Apologies for the inconvenience.
40 years on from the Miners’ strikes, Craig Oldham has published In Loving Memory of Work through Rough Trade Books. Described as ‘Powerful’ by Creative Review and ‘Superb’ by Jeremy Deller, Ken Loach also declared ‘Every University should place an order.’
Curated and edited by designer and author, Craig Oldham, In Loving Memory of Work tells the story of the UK Miners’ Strike 1984-85 through the visual culture of the working class affected during this pivotal period. Photographs, posters, badges, banners and more are presented alongside contemporary commentary.
Craig talks about the impact of image-making and design on this particular movement and more broadly explores the vital role visual material plays in dissent and in the radical and revolutionary moment.
The talk is accompanied by a month-long exhibition of posters designed by Craig and his design practice, Office of Craig, and how design influences and supports various solidarity movements.
You can visit the exhibition at the Black Box on Hill Street, Belfast, from 4th – 26th January.
BIOGRAPHY:
Craig Oldham has been named as one of the most influential designers working in the UK, and has written books on a range of topics including education, culture and politics. He runs his design practice, Office of Craig, in Manchester and is Creative Director of Rough Trade Books.
This show has now been moved to Thursday 27 March. Original Tickets remain valid and refunds available.
Sincere apologies for the inconvenience.
To mark twenty years since the release of Bright Eyes’ I’m Wide Awake, It’s Morning, Joel Harkin will be joined by a seven-piece band and special guests to perform the classic album in its entirety.
Just as resonant now as they were in 2005, Conor Oberst’s sprawling lyrics on I’m Wide Awake, It’s Morning explore perennial themes of isolation, nihilism, American imperialism, and that last stubbornly inextinguishable spark of hope.
Sonically, the album charts a course through popular music from Beethoven, to the vigour of 1960s protest songs, to desolate country of the 1970s, and on through the alternative music of the 1990s and 2000s. This talented collection of friends and collaborators will faithfully recreate these ten songs about being very young and feeling very old.
Joel Harkin is a musician from Convoy, Co. Donegal who has made a home for himself in Belfast’s music scene. He has loved Bright Eyes for half of his life so far. He’s been looking forward to this for ages. “Let’s fuck it up, boys. Make some noise!”
To ensure everyone’s safety we have postponed this show. Ticket holders have been contacted and new details posted soon.
Apologies for the inconvenience.
The Swing Gals are Northern Ireland’s original and leading vocal harmony trio. The girls have been performing together for over 15 years and are renowned for their innovative vocal arrangements of swing, jazz and a variety of popular modern genres.
They are delighted to return to the Out to Lunch Festival after their successful sell out performance in 2022. The Gals perform with their own band and appearances with the superb 16 piece Indigo Big Band have delighted their audiences.
Today’s line up consists of Ruth Jennings, Clare Galway and Orla McKeagney, accompanied by Kathy McKeagney. They will perform a varied programme of their sophisticated arrangements of songs from the iconic Andrews Sisters, ABBA, Diana Krall and the Sugababes.
To ensure everyone’s safety we have postponed this show. Ticket holders have been contacted and new details posted soon.
Apologies for the inconvenience.
Legendary 70s folk-rock pioneers LINDISFARNE return to form with a classic five-piece line up of long-time members fronted by original founder-member Rod Clements on vocals, mandolin, fiddle and slide guitar.
With a repertoire of unforgettable songs like Meet Me On The Corner, Fog On The Tyne, Lady Eleanor and Run For Home and a reputation for live performance second to none,
LINDISFARNE’s power to galvanise festival and concert audiences remains undimmed and is guaranteed to get the crowd on its feet and singing along.
LINDISFARNE 2025 are:
ROD CLEMENTS (1969-present) Vocal, mandolin, fiddle, guitars
DAVE HULL-DENHOLM (1994-present) Vocal, guitars
STEVE DAGGETT (1986-present) Vocal, keyboards, guitars
OTL presents the original vampire classic with a live score performance by Belfast’s own Documenta.
In F.W. Murnau’s classic chiller, the mysterious Count Orlok summons Thomas Hutter to his remote Transylvanian castle in the mountains. The eerie Orlok seeks to buy a house near Hutter and his wife, Ellen. But Orlok is also the vampire Nosferatu, and when Hutter struggles to escape the castle, he knows that Ellen is in grave danger…
Documenta’s lysergic drone-pop fully espouses Sonic Boom’s mantra, “three chords good, two chords better, one chord best.” Running with the idea of minimalism equals maximalism, and imbuing it with a beatific four-guitar attack and repetition (repetition, repetition). Widescreen, Kosmische-leaning psychedelia at its best.
Seán Ronayne in conversation on his book ‘Nature Boy’. Seán will also play birdsong audio clips throughout the event. His book recently won Irish Book Awards Biography of the Year:
Seán Ronayne always knew he was different. Nicknamed ‘nature boy’ by the other kids, as a child he struggled to fit in and regularly escaped to the woods and coastlines around his home in Cork.
The natural world was his happy place and where he discovered his true passion – identifying and understanding birds through their sound and song. A passion that would save him in the weeks and months following a near‑death experience in his late teens. Even in the darkest times, nature became his guiding light.
As Seán found his path working as an ornithologist, he began to see how, by highlighting the wonder and beauty of the natural world, he could draw attention to the danger it currently faces.
And, at the age of thirty-two, Seán received an autism diagnosis and his life finally started to make sense.
Here, Seán takes us on his journey. From his adventures in the Sahara Desert, the jungles of Nepal and the streets of Thailand, to discovering the night sounds of Catalunya, and his mission to sound record all the regularly occurring bird species in Ireland, Nature Boy is an inspiring story of love, connection and the healing power of nature.
‘Seán’s sensitivity to the natural world captivates the reader, allowing all of us approach closer and appreciate more the sublime beauty of what surrounds us’– Manchán Magan
‘A stunning testament to the wonders of nature’ – Pádraic Fogarty
‘Seán is perhaps the greatest and most eloquent champion for Irish nature I have come across. Powerful, impassioned and deeply moving, please read this book, now!’ – Niall Hatch, BirdWatch Ireland
‘With disarming honesty, eloquence and humour, Seán Ronayne recounts how he took possession of a childhood taunt and made it his adult mission’ – Magnus Robb
‘Informative, inspiring and insightful, this book is a heartfelt and enthralling personal journey of a life ensconced in nature’ – Anja Murray
New Street Adventure
‘Every now and then a band shakes you from your reveries about pop’s golden past and reminds you there are still classic chapters to be written’,Paul Moody (Q Magazine)
Led by singer and songwriter Nick Corbin, New Street Adventure released two albums on the legendary Acid Jazz Records, producing soul-fuelled tunes cut with a distinctly British edge that saw Nick hailed by The Guardian’s Tim Jonze as having “an innate understanding of classic songwriting”.
The band toured the UK and Europe several times, headlining the likes of London’s Jazz Cafe and 100 Club, Hamburg’s Mojo Club and sharing the bill with the likes of Lee Fields & The Expressions, The Milk, Leroy Hutson and The Rifles, before separating in early 2018.
Carmy Love
Soul singer Carmy Love launched her solo career in 2021, with her debut 45 ‘Rebel / Thinkin’ About You‘ on Big AC Records selling out prior to its official release and gaining praise from Craig Charles (6 Music), Robert Elms (BBC London) and Norman Jay (Soho Radio) amongst many others.
Born and raised in North West London, Carmy had a rich musical upbringing: Her Mother and Step-Father were DJs on several underground stations including Roots, Unique and Flava Radio. The likes of Janet Kay, Louisa Marks and Chaka Khan all featured heavily during her formative years, whilst an early grounding in Gospel singing developed her vocal style and stage craft.
Having also sung with Cool Million, PM Warson, Charles and House Gospel Choir, Carmy was also an original member of New Street Adventure, making a major contribution to “No Hard Feelings” – NSA’s debut album on Acid Jazz – with her stunning backing vocals elevating the record to modern soul classic status.
The Gold Tips
The Gold Tips blow a non-stop soul hurricane. They emerged out of Belfast, fully formed, not too long ago. Their distinctive, righteous sound, created and driven by frontman Eamonn McNamee, is soaked in a deep love of Sam Cooke, Stax & Rock ‘n’ Roll and has already seen them pack clubs and carry them to festival main stages.
The band opened for the legendary Nile Rodgers & Chic to a sell-out crowd at Custom House Square, Belfast in August 2021 and Van Morrison on the same stage in 2022.
Their debut album ‘Parade’ released in February last year, is a 9 track, horn-drenched, glorious squall forged in the great sounds of the past and sounding absolutely of the moment.
Aaron Craig
Aaron Craig is a Belfast-based musician, singer, and songwriter. Influenced by the energy of rock with emotion of soul. Drawing inspiration from the rich musical heritage of various genres, he plays music that is both timeless and fresh.
The acclaimed book, Curepedia, written in 2023 by music journalist Simon Price, was described as an encyclopaedic biography and homage to The Cure. It’s now a live show, especially for fans of the legendary English goth band or anyone with a love of the alternative sounds of the 80s.
This special event features a fascinating interview with and readings by Simon Price. Joe Nawaz will pose the questions, before its opened up for an audience Q&A. Don’t miss this chance to hear from a bona fide Cure expert.
Simon then brings one of Brighton’s best-loved club nights SPELLBOUND – ‘The Alternative 80s Night’, as he spins the best of Goth, Post-Punk, New Romantic, Alternative Rock, Synth from 1979 – 1989. Expect everything from the Virgin Prunes, The Cramps to Siouxsie & The Banshees and much more. Jayney BlamBlam will also DJ at this event.
More about Curepedia
Curepedia (published by White Rabbit) was ranked by The Guardian as one of their five best music books of 2023.
Despite forming in 1978, The Cure continue to be a massive draw for Irish audiences as shown by their 2022 sell-out show at the Dublin 3 Arena. Songs like Lullaby, The Walk, Friday I’m in Love, Close to Me, In Between Days, Just Like Heaven and Boys Don’t Cry still inspire a fervent brand of fandom in Ireland.
Their iconic status as elder statesmen of Alternative Rock remains undiminished – if anything, their tireless touring has ensured that it has grown with every passing year – and lead singer Robert Smith is an endlessly fascinating figure to successive generations of fans. The Cure’s influence reverberates through genres including Emo, Goth, Industrial and Indie Rock.
In Curepedia, Price also goes beyond the music in this mammoth biography, offering a detailed analysis of The Cure’s wider cultural impact on British male mental health, toxic masculinity and stoicism in the face of emotional trauma with an essay on Boys Don’t Cry. Over the years, the song has become more than a pop song but an antidote to the “English stiff upper lip” mentality and an anthem for male sensitivity.
Providing rich cultural context for the inspirations behind the band’s ever-evolving and diverse discography, Curepedia is the go-to book for every music fan.
“Simon Price is a goth aficionado, and his encyclopaedic knowledge of The Cure was a pleasure to study and absorb – highly recommended for superfans or anyone with an interest in one of our most treasured bands of the past four decades” Tim Burgess (The Charlatans)
Simon Price
Simon Price is a Welsh music journalist and author. He wrote extensively for Melody Maker in the 80’s and is a regular contributor to The Quietus and The Guardian among others. He’s also the author of Everything: A Book About Manic Street Preachers. It was named Book of The Year by NME and Rock Book of The Decade by the Guardian.
‘The A-Z format of Curepedia allowed me to combine in-depth analysis with utter trivia in a way which is, I hope, both entertaining and informative, both factual and fun’. Simon Price
Signed copies of Curepedia will be available to purchase on the night
“But I didn’t do it! I was Andy Duframed!” Dreamgun bring their Film Reads parody of The Shawshank Redemption to Belfast for the first time.
Dreamgun takes your favourite movies and completely rewrites with jokes and nonsense. Unrehearsed, unprepared and performed by an award winning ensemble most of whom have seen The Shawshank Redemption.
“Hilarious live read-throughs of brilliantly rewritten film classics, a joy” – Dara Ó Briain
★★★★★- “Merciless, hilarious. Consistently sharp, rapid-fire funny writing and crackling performances” – The Irish Times
★★★★★- “Kept us in stitches and potentially destroyed a host of childhood memories.” – Broadway Baby
★★★★★ – The Wee Review ★★★★★ – Rule of Three ★★★★★ – FreshAir
Having reassessed her life through the prism of an ADHD diagnosis in last year’s funny and moving memoir, one of Britain’s most beloved and most scatterbrained stand-ups lets you back into her mind (warning: it’s cluttered in there).
Among other things, this show will be a love-letter to letter-writing, a trip back through her early years as a comic and woman-about-town, and a whirlwind tour of a chaotic, hilarious brain.
“She has plenty to say, and says it with pointedness and potency”Guardian
Presented in association with the Oh Yeah Centre as part of the Women’s Work festival.
Indigo Girls were one of only a handful of acts to emerge in the 80s and 90s who somehow found success in the music industry purely on their own terms.
Blending 40 years of home movies, incredible raw film archive, and intimate present-day verité, the award-nominated It’s Only Life After All is a poignant reflection of the iconic folk rock duo.
Even at their commercial peak, Amy Ray and Emily Saliers were routinely mocked for being too earnest, too poetic, too folky, too lesbian. Back then, being labelled a female, gay singer-songwriter was an artistic and commercial curse, as Ray recalls in vivid detail in one of the film’s most powerful scenes.
There’s been something of an Indigo Girls renaissance in the offing since Margot Robbie’s Barbie belted out Closer to Fine across thousands of multiplexes last summer. It’s Only Life After Allis a timely look into the obstacles, activism, and life lessons of two queer friends who never expected to make it big.
“Smart and compelling…Existing fans will be mesmerized, but non-fans like me should also get a kick out of “It’s Only Life After All.”Elisabeth Vincentelli – Critic’s Pick, New York Times
Supported by Film Hub NI, part of the BFI Film Audience Network, awarding funds from National Lottery.
The year is 1960, the Voice of America Jazz Hour broadcasts the likes of Louis Armstrong and Dizzy Gillespie behind the Iron Curtain, while a wave of decolonization movements tear through the African continent and the struggle for civil rights marches on stateside.
Beat by beat, Grimonprez traces Lumumba’s rise from 36-year-old independence leader to Congo’s first democratically elected prime minister—and how corporate and colonial interests, along with machinations at the United Nations, conspired in his assassination.
Deeply researched, the film interweaves archival records, home movies, newly unearthed speeches by Lumumba, and published memoirs by Congolese activists and writers with the story of the Black jazz legends who defined the era in more ways than one. Pulsating with the energy of the period,Soundtrack to a Coup d’État’s chilling indictment of colonial power roars on in the present day.
“The rumble of jazz and politics in the global south…a stunning screed against colonial racism and state sanctioned violence.”Slant Magazine
IN ASSOCIATION WITH MOVING ON MUSIC
Supported by Film Hub NI, part of the BFI Film Audience Network, awarding funds from National Lottery.’
Join us for a special screening of “I Think We’re Alone Now,” an award-winning documentary exploring the lives of two fans whose deep connection to 80s pop star Tiffany goes beyond ordinary admiration.
Meet Jeff Turner and Kelly McCormick, two devoted fans whose admiration for Tiffany has transformed into something much deeper.
As their stories unfold, the film takes you on a journey through the blurred lines of love, obsession, and the human need for connection.
Supported by Film Hub NI, part of the BFI Film Audience Network, awarding funds from National Lottery.
Join us for a double screening of Afrobeat excellence.
Music is the Weapon (1 Hour)
Directed in 1982 by Stephane Tchai-Gadjieff and Jean-Jacques Flori, Music is the Weapon is the definitive documentary on FELA. An essential film for all who wish to know more about an artist at the heart of African musical history.
Shot in Lagos, this documentary carries us from the ‘Kalakuta Republic’ to the mythical ‘Shrine’ nightclub. At the height of his popularity in a chaotic Nigeria, Fela wanted to stand for president.
The Army responded by attacking and ransacking his community, raping his wives and throwing his mother from a window, who was later to die from her injuries. Coming from yet another time in prison, more determined than ever and surrounded by his wives, Fela transmits to the camera his thoughts on politics, Pan-Africanism, music and religion.
William Onyeabor: Fantastic Man (30 mins)
“We were looking for a group of individuals that had something otherworldly about them,” says musician and filmmaker Adam Bainbridge aka Kindness on the stars of today’s video for “Fantastic Man” by near-mythical psychedelic funk artist William Onyeabor.
“I then remembered the energy, the sense of camaraderie and above all, the love of music of the Central Park skaters.”
Co-directed with Camilla Wasserman, the joyous short spotlights the cosmic funk of the artist from Enugu, Nigeria, whose backstory is virtually unknown. After a prolific musical output in the 1980s, Onyeabor became a born-again Christian, refusing to talk about his past; one that may or may not have included a period studying film in the Soviet Union and setting up a recording studio, pressing plant and record label when he returned to Africa.
“I found out that Damon Albarn was one of the few guys who was familiar with his music,” says Eric Welles-Nyström from Luaka Bop, the label founded by David Byrne and Yale Evelev that released last year’s critically lauded compilation, Who is William Onyeabor?. “It wasn’t until we spoke with Damon that it hit me how funny Onyeabor’s music can be.
Supported by Film Hub NI, part of the BFI Film Audience Network, awarding funds from National Lottery.
Now Press Play takes you to the outer reaches of music and film that is The “Norn Iron” pop video. Do you know your Johnny Loughrey from your Mama’s Boys? Where were you when Willie Drennan’s Lambeg Boogie dropped? Have you ever truly experienced Lisburn until you’ve seen hip-hopper Jordan Castle’s videographic love letter (surprisingly entitled “Lisburn”)? Just who are the children referred to in the Rev William McCrae’s comeback hit “Where are the Children?”, and where are those children now?
All these questions and more will be answered by Joe Nawaz – your host for this personal odyssey. One question though remains naggingly elusive… Was Joe himself plucked from obscurity at the age of 13 to star in a Dana video? Join us for this celebration of the wayward history history of the NI music video, with a little intrigue thrown in for good measure…
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The Cathedral Quarter Arts Festival and Out To Lunch are annual festivals of music, comedy, theatre, art and literature which take place in January and May in Belfast, Northern Ireland.
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![SBT [Sarabeth Tucek] with special guest Ben de la Cour](https://cqaf.com/wp-content/uploads/Sarabeth-Tucek.jpg)
