It’s a busy weekend in Dublin as the summer comes to a close and a whole bunch of festivals roll through town. The most obvious is the Tall Ships, you can’t miss it if you’re anywhere near the docks, with its really tall ships and groups of sharply dressed sailors making their way about town. The Darklight festival is also near the docks, working out of its Factory base on Barrow St. The annual event is always full of surprises and this year’s programme does not disappoint. There’s loads of gigs too, and a multi-media arts festival in a Hilton hotel of all places. Only in Kilmainham.
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Darklight Film Festival (Various Venues, All Weekend)
Darklight is Dublin’s annual foray celebrating independent film-making of all kinds. This year’s theme is Lo-Fi vs Hi-Fi and the festival as a whole is set to explore the symbiotic relationships between directors, cinematogrpahers, musicians and VFX specialists. The programme is full of great events but our hightlights include Personal Archive: Live Documentary today at 8pm, the Shooting With Drones workshop, Le Cool’s showcase of Irish-based animators on Sunday and the unmissable Terence Davies in Conversation with Donald Clarke on Saturday at 8pm in the Factory.
Programme details and tickets for the festival are available on their website: http://www.darklight.ie/tickets/
Orquesta – Debut Live Show (The Grand Social, Friday, 9pm)
We called his Our Final Expedition EP our favourite Irish release of the year so far and we’re very excited about the prospect of seeing Orquesta become a full-band to launch the cassette edition of that EP. The debut Orquesta show sees the man himself supported by a rag-tag group of talented musicians and friends, with the promise that each live appearance will feature unique arrangements of the songs, creating a once-off event each and every time.
http://www.facebook.com/events/184275615037659/
Kilmainham Arts Festival (Saturday & Sunday, Kilmainham Arts Club)
It’s not often you find an arts festival based in and around a Hilton hotel but Kilmainham Arts Festival offers you just that level of luxury. Combining theatre, story-telling, visual art and music over the course of two days, the festival promises something for everyone and children are more than welcome. There’s burlesque 101, Irish dancing classes, song circles, African drumming workshops and a tour of the beautiful grounds of IMMA, thankfully free of the festival-goers it has seen the past few years.
http://www.facebook.com/events/502766696404119/
Jogging – Take Courage Album Launch (Whelan’s, Saturday, 8pm, €10, €15 w/vinyl)
At this stage, Jogging need no introduction. Quite simply one of the finest bands to grace our stages in recent years, their debut album, Minutes, on the Richter Collective was a sharp and to-the-point collection of thumping, melodic post-hardcore. Now they’re back with album #2 and they have refined their process to a fine art. Take Courage is a positive step for the band, upping production values and increasing the imaginative range of their structures and playing, without changing the basic frame too much. Expect the songs to truly come alive on stage though, where the energy is always palpable.
The Outer Church (Subground 43, Saturday, 8.30pm, €10)
The Outer Church is a monthly night of shadowy music and film in Brighton led by journalist and paranormal enthusiast Joseph Stannard. The OC aesthetic is dark and musty, exploring the furthest corners of the British psyche through independent horror films and an ever-growing cast of electronic and folk musicians. For their visit to Dublin, the Outer Church welcomes back Pye Corner Audio (Ghostbox, Type), Black Mountain Transmitter (Auris Apothecary) and Kemper Norton, plus there will be a screening of Graham Reznick’s psychedelic campfire horror, I Can See You.
Check out The Outer Church’s Euphonic Paradigms playlist that we posted yesterday to get in the mood.
http://www.facebook.com/events/324864520941147/
Dublin Flea Market (Dublin Food Co-Op, Newmarket Square, Sunday)
Probably the biggest and best of Dublin’s myriad Sunday markets, the last flea of the summer (eh, what summer?) will be something more akin to a small festival than a traditional second-hand market. The venue as always is the Co-Op on Newmarket Square and you can expect the stalls to spill out on the square, bursting with vintage furniture, board games and general old tat. Get down early, be prepared to dig and you’ll almost certainly come home with a few gems.
