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As a teenager in the late eighties (87-88), I got into hard rock (Guns n' Roses, Whitesnake, Def Leppard, Bon Jovi, Twisted Sister, Billy Idol, etc.). The first big concert I went to was Bon Jovi (with Lita Ford as support) in the RDS in October 88. Before going through my rebellious adolescent stage, I'd been a nerdy kid and had just got 10 honours in my Inter Cert so I used that accomplishment to persuade my parents that I deserved a reward. They let me get a bus to Dublin by myself (big deal for a 15-year old culchie who had only ever been to Dublin to visit relatives in hospital). The band put on a fabulous show with some cool pyrotechnics and it was a great night. Soon after this, I got into heavier music (Maiden, Megadeth, Metallica, Anthrax, etc.) and – other than hearing Living on a Prayer on the radio — I never listened to them again. If I had a free ticket, I'd probably enjoy it but I've no interest in spending money to wallow in nostalgia.

I just discovered that Paradise Lost are playing Belfast, Dublin and Limerick over the solstice weekend next March. I remember liking them back in the 90s but haven't listened to them since then. I must give them another listen to see what they're like these days.

https://paradiselost.co.uk/tour-dates/
https://mcd.ie/artists/paradise-lost

I thought they were great when they played the Button Factory a couple of years ago. The new album sounded decent on first listen but didn't immediately grab me. I'll have to give it a proper listen before making a decision on this.

Was that the mantua where it pissed rain the whole weekend?

Mantua was showery when I was there in 2008 – not raining for the whole weekend. Mantua had a great friendly vibe to it and I enjoyed the amateurness of the small festival. Tickets were cheap but there was hardly any security so a lot of people just turned up without tickets. Unfortunately, that wrecked it for the organisers and that was the last year they ran it.

Adebisi Shank were a great live band. I last saw them at the Mantua festival in Roscommon, 2008 (alongside the likes of BATS and Rarely Seen Above Ground).

The Faith No More concert in 1992 was excellent. Their support that night was L7 who were on their "Bricks Are Heavy" (still a great album) tour. I was disappointed to miss their 2009 show in the Olympia but had been looking forward to seeing them play the Sunstroke festival in 2020 (damn Covid). Now, it seems unlikely we'll get to see FNM with Mike Patton again.

I also live in Phibsborough and when replying to Trev, I was thinking what I should do, myself. I thought of going for a drink afterwards and then getting the last DART back. But that would be a risk as there's a fair chance that the DART station could still be full of fans who weren't able to get on one of earlier trains.

I then looked up TFI's Journey Planner and it estimates that cycling to Phibsborough would take an hour and 20 minutes. I haven't cycled anywhere in months and I'd have to get my bike working again (replace spokes in rear wheel) but I might just do that. It depends on whether I end up going with a friend-of-a-friend or not (I just have one ticket for myself) and what the weather is like on the day (with glasses, I hate cycling in the rain at night).

Up at 5am? Ouch!

Going to see The Cure in 2019, we got the DART out to Malahide but didn't fancy battling with thousands of others to get a train back to the city centre after the concert. We paid €10 to get a bus back to town but with congested traffic, it took ages to get out of Malahide. When we eventually arrived at O'Connell Street, we could see that lots of Metallica fans had already made it back from Slane before us. That's just one reason I don't like Malahide as a venue. The roads are just too small and residential. I suspect you'll have to skip the encore if you don't want to be stuck in traffic. Best of luck with it!

I saw their M72 tour two years ago in The Lighthouse. No fuss getting tickets. Just Metallica fans there for the music, not because it was an "event". Time for a drink afterwards and still be home before midnight. And enough money left over to buy a Dewalt DWE560-GB!

Iron Maiden were my favourite band in the late 80s but I had lost interest in their new stuff when "No Prayer for the Dying" was released in 1990 and nothing I've heard from them in the intervening years has done much for me (that could be my own tastes changing). Interestingly, the 1990 tour was the one time I got to see them live (with fine support from Wolfsbane who had just released their B-movie sci-fi homage, "All Hell's Breaking Loose Down at Little Kathy Wilson's Place").

I still love their albums from the 80s so when I heard they were going to play only songs from the first ten albums for their forthcoming tour, I figured this would be a good opportunity to see them play live again – even though I'm not a fan of Malahide Castle as a venue. I checked their Budapest set-list and now I'm even more excited. It's a solid set-list and fairly representative of their early albums (though I'd love to see "Running Free" included).

I'm very much looking forward to this one. I was going to ask what if anyone knows what the set times are. I haven't had a chance to check out the support band, Dom Zły but would like to catch them all the same. According to DME Promotions Facebook page the times are:

Doors: 19:00
Dom Zly: 19:45
Z&A: 20:45

Also says that tickets are available on the door so it hasn't sold out.

I thought this was a great concert. I missed the first support act but Svalbard were really good. It was the last show of the current tour so the bands put on a great show.

As a fan of both shoegaze and atmospheric black metal, I'd been looking forward to seeing Alcest for the past couple of months and they lived up to my expectations.  They played for close to an hour and 30 minutes and included most of their recent album, starting with the opening track from the album and very fittingly, finished the performance with "Adieu", the closing track. They also played a couple from the second last album, one song from their first album and a few I didn't recognise.

The drums really dominated the sound – at least from where I was standing – and I gained a new appreciation for the skills of the drummer. He has an interesting style where for a lot of songs, he'd hit the snare drum on the third beat of every bar – something that I hadn't ever picked up on when listening to their recorded output.

I'd recommend checking Ticketmaster every now and again. When I tried getting a ticket on the day of release, all the Front Standing tickets had already been sold in the pre-sale. Over the following weeks, I checked Ticketmaster about once a week and eventually (just over a month ago), I saw Front Standing tickets become available. I was going to be in town the following day and I was lucky enough to get my ticket from the good people in The Soundcellar.