Hours away from 2018 and the Custom House Quay is already at full capacity. Seagulls are circling overhead. Crowd members wait in their bobble hats and puffer jackets. It’s cold enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkey. And god only knows how many other members are shrivelling up between trouser legs.

NYE countdown Concert w/ Kodaline, Hudson Taylor and Keywest.

A post shared by Natalie Dyer (@natalie_anouska) on Jan 2, 2018 at 4:39am PST

Keywest, who are no strangers to harsh weather from their Grafton Street busking days, embrace the liffey winds and kick off with a rumbling drum solo. Local frontman, Andrew Kavanagh, tells us it’s been the easiest gig he’s had to commute to, while the band rhythmically aid in his storytelling. After some pop rock melodies, the bongos roll out for ‘Carousel’. Kavanagh shares with us the song’s meaning: “Have you ever been so in love with somebody that you couldn’t talk to them? So you just stalk them?”

_image2_

One or two heads nod empathetically. Half a dozen look to their nearest friend and shrug. “Well this song is about that,” he says - before proving through the sincerity of his voice box, that he very much did love someone enough to stalk them.

Keywest finish up with a blues rock tune, completed by an electric guitar-off between Kavanagh and fellow bandmate, James Lock. Onlookers are full of gusto as excitement builds for the next act.

Irish folk outfit, Hudson Taylor now enter stage right. Playing the teddy boy meets dandy part, lead singer Alfie has his hair quiffed and gelled. The rest are all fedoras, fiddles, harmonicas, moustaches and tambourines. None would be misplaced if found smoking underneath a tree by a church, one field over from a defunct railroad in Alabama.

_image3_

After a rendition of their highly catchy folk anthem, ‘World Without You’, Hudson Taylor continue to get hands clapping with hearty harmonies and a multi-instrumental display. They end with a perfect cadence.

The clock’s hand ticks another minute closer to 2018 and our headliners Kodaline arrive. Once runners up in RTE’s ‘You’re a Star’ - and now set for a mainland European tour, the boys re-adjust earpieces and are ‘Ready’, as their first song of the evening would suggest. “Are we all wrapped up? ‘Cos its so fucking cold right now”, lead vocalist Steve Garrigan says. People make noise in admiration.

The Swords native mozies on over to the keyboard for ‘Love Will Set You Free’ and effortlessly climbs up the scales with twiddly bits on the way. For ‘High Hopes’, concert goers don’t falter on lyrical singback. It’s like a female all-Ireland choir final.

_image4_

Only mere seconds left, but what would it be without some Celtic reminders? Viking gentlemen in kilts present themselves for a metronomic countdown on hand drums. 3,2,1… Welcome to 2018! There’s midnight kisses and missiles of colour being chucked into the night sky.

Heliosphere’s water acrobats suck up the Liffey water and do high flying jetpack tricks - in the aquatic version of what a boy racer doughnut would be. Not long after, Kodaline’s Steve Garrigan cracks on with the harmonica, which has been miraculously attached to his neck in the midst of it all. Following a solo acoustic guitar session, the full band come back onstage to finish with a heavier indie-rock number.

_image5_

In the clearout, Hot Press asks punters how they feel about departing with €45 when the concert could be watched from the other side of the quay for free. Bar the obvious fangirling over tonight’s musicians, some said nothing could beat being in the middle of a live outdoor gig and feeling present. Others felt that the space was better than squishing into a bar during one of the busiest times of year. One lad explained how he met his girlfriend after a Kodaline gig two years ago:

“We got tickets for tonight because we wanted to bring those memories into 2018 together.”

And with what these lovers can’t experience from the outer walls, it goes to show - there’s just no better memory than music. Especially on an evening full of reflection like New Year's Eve.