Vesta Varro at Limerick's Dolans and Hybrasil at The Sugar Club, Dublin

Murphy’s Live’s tour of Ireland to find the best unsigned band has inadvertently offered me the opportunity to inspect the venues Ireland has to offer. And Limerick’s Dolan’s is right up there with the best: with its spacious interior and long, well-staffed bar, it’s the perfect setting to see the two competing bands, Star Belgrade and Secret Police (offical judge-type verdicts on these two bands are available elsewhere in this issue!).
The headliners, Vesta Varro, are no strangers to Dolan’s, being from Limerick ’n’ all. Opener ‘Yellow Rooms’ sets the tone of their set, with Damien Drea pulling the band together for a passion-filled performance. ‘Coming Back’, in fact, has the urgency to stir the quintet into quite a frenzy – which is equally exhilarating to watch. Meanwhile, ‘Weighted Love’ is the perfect medium to show off Mr Drea’s soaring voice. With their debut album in the pipeline, we predict 2007 is going to be a very good year for the band. Just watch out...
A week later, Lost and SuperJimenez having done their competitive thing, it’s left to Hybrasil to end this round of the competition. While the Sugar Club is also up there with Dolan’s in terms of great Irish venues, it can be unforgiving if a band fails to grab the audience. On this occasion, Hybrasil play well enough, but receive a slightly less upbeat reaction than they deserve. There is a gap between the power they deliver on record and tonight’s live show. It’s something they need to work on, because – given a platform like this – they need to win fans and influence people.