Gilla Band to perform Dublin and Belfast shows this December

Following their sold-out three nights Whelan's residency in March 2022, Gilla Band (formally known as Girl Band) will return to the live circuit this December 2022.

They will perform their biggest headline show to date in National Stadium, Dublin 9th December, and Empire, Belfast 15th December 20222 - presented by singular artists.

Gilla Band burst onto the scene in 2015 with their debut album Holding Hands with Jamie, stunning audiences with their furious, confrontational, visceral noise and singer Dara Kiely’s cleverly meandering screeds. The record won universal acclaim, before the band took a two-year hiatus.

The group came together in late 2018 to record their follow-up, The Talkies, at Ballintubbert House, a stately manor on the outskirts of Dublin.

The Talkies was released in September 2019, again winning huge acclaim, before September 2020 saw the release of a blistering live album, Live At Vicar Street. The project captured the group’s phenomenal spirit in front of an audience.

Gilla Band were recently announced as the headliners for Misty Fields Festival in the Netherlands – leading a line-up that also includes Irish acts Just Mustard and Sprints.

Misty Fields, which is celebrating its 15th anniversary this year, is set to take place across September 9, 10 and 11, on the edge of De Groote Peel National Park, just outside the village of Asten-Heusden.

Gilla Band played three nights in Whelan's, Dublin this month and are due to perform their rescheduled New Year's Eve show in Dolans Warehouse, Limerick on May 1.

Back in November, the outfit formerly known as Girl Band announced a name change in a statement.

“We are changing our band name," the acclaimed Dublin band revealed. "We will no longer be performing or releasing records under the name Girl Band. We apologise for choosing a misgendered name in the first place and to anyone who has been hurt or affected by it.

"When we were starting off it was chosen without much thought, from a place of naivety and ignorance," they continued. "We had no grasp of the weight of it at the time and in the past few years have found it impossible to justify or explain this choice.

"Regardless of our intention the effect of the name has been damaging to individuals. To try and negate any unfortunate role we’ve played in propagating a culture of non-inclusivity in music or otherwise, we have decided to change it.

"Thank you to those who spoke up about it and educated us on this, either directly or indirectly. Moving forward we will be performing and releasing records under the name Gilla Band. Gilla being a given name taken from Old Irish”.

Revisit Girl Band's 2019 interview with Hot Press here.