Music News of the Year: Irish Rock Goes Up To ‘11’ Again

2019 turned out to be a vintage year for guitar-toting Irish men and women.

Going top ten on both sides of the Irish Sea with Dogrel were Fontaines D.C. who are only prevented from bagging Live Performance of the Year by their Partisan Records labelmates Idles who they toured the States with.

The guestlist when they hit L.A. included ex-Pistol Steve Jones and The National’s Matt Berninger who is a serious fan.

Fears that they might be a bit too overtly Dublin for overseas consumption were allayed when they blew The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon audience away with a blistering ‘Boys In The Better Land’.

In November, the quartet scored the triple-whammy of having Hot Press, Rough Trade Records and BBC 6Music make Dogrel their album of the year. Work on the follow up is at an advanced stage with Fontaines D.C.’s Iveagh Gardens show on July 4 guaranteed to be one of 2020’s most raucous nights out.

With the aforementioned Idles who are one-quarter Irish, Pillow Queens, Girl Band, TOUTS, PowPig, Thumper, The Murder Capital, Fangclub and Just Mustard also making serous headway, it’s been the loudest year here in decades.

Sadly, there were also casualties with the Otherkin boys calling it quits after seven thrilling years together.

Amplifiers will also be humming next June when the rebooted Sunstroke festival comes to Punchestown Racecourse. Joining headliners Faith No More, Deftones, Gojira and The Jesus & The Mary Chain are the aforementioned Fangclub, Bitch Falcon, Wargasm, Thumper, Vulpynes and Paranoid Visions, the veteran Dublin punks that keep getting better and better.