It’s the last week of Dublin Fringe Festival and there’s still plenty of shows of all stripes in theatre, cabaret, comedy dance, drag, visual art and spoken word to catch before the festival winds up its year.
Here’s some music picks taking place this week:
Creativity On Tap: Qbanaa
17 Sept, 8pm (Doors 7.30pm)
@ Roe & Co Distillery
Step inside Roe & Co Distillery, the home of cocktail exploration and modern Irish whiskey, for an intimate, high-energy set from Qbanaa – the Cuban-Irish artist blending neo-soul, jazz, and Latin rhythm into something entirely her own.
Qbanaa brings her signature mix of Spanglish storytelling, raw emotion, and irresistible groove to the heart of the Liberties.
The Deadline Project
17 Sept, 18:00 (preview)
18 – 20 Sept, 18:00
19 – 20 Sept, 13:00
@ The New Theatre
As the end of the world approaches, two grieving musicians record their music and answer psychological questions for an AI model built for human preservation, all while they question their motivations, relationships, music and grief.
A soft sci-fi folk musical full of quiet apocalypses and loud emotions, this is Once meets Black Mirror for anyone who feels like they are living at the end of the world.
Written by Joshua McNutt and Tishé Fatunbi | ArínọláTheatre
As If I Always Knew – Piano Meditations
16 Sept, 20:30 (preview)
17, 18 & 20 Sept, 20:30
@ Dublin Castle – Chapel Royal
A semi-improvised solo piano performance from Cian Sweeney (1000 Beasts) inviting you to slow down and breathe. Blending live music, gentle breath work, audience participation and soft humming, this intimate experience encourages deep listening, relaxation, and presence. Shaped by the energy in the room, each performance is unique – an invitation to connect with yourself and those around you.
Change
18 Sept, 18:15 (preview)
19 – 20 Sept, 18:15
20 Sept, 13:00
@ Project Arts Centre – Space Upstairs
The clock is ticking. Are you on board for change? This is an invocation. This dance performance weaves a powerful call to climate action through movement, music, and diverse bodies in motion.
Created by Croí Glan, a disabled led dance company, and inspired by Rebecca Solnit’s Not Too Late and Christiana Figueres’s The Future We Choose, this hope filled performance reimagines the world through resilience, connection, and community. Created in collaboration with scientists from the Environmental Research Institute at UCC, and with diverse performers from diverse lands, this interdisciplinary dance theatre piece is a vibrant celebration of what we’ve lost—and what we can still save.
Last Gig Ever
17 Sept, 18:45 (preview)
18 – 20 Sept, 18:45
@ Smock Alley Theatre – The Patrick Sutton Studio, Gaiety School of Acting
Third time around. Two Idiots. One rave.
A theatrical, humoristic, physical and personal dive into the constraints, liberties and complexities of nightlife and DJ culture – and all the shite that comes with it. A visceral journey through the liminal realms of the dancefloor, exploring fleeting moments and memories from both in front and behind the decks that last a lifetime in the body.
Join this duo as they chase chaos, euphoria, the especially-highs and definite-lows
Libya! – Farah Elle
17 Sept, 13:00 (preview)
17 – 20 Sept, 19:50
18 Sept, 13:00
@ Bewley’s Café Theatre – at Bewley’s Café
What does it mean to have your heart broken open? Farah Elle invites you into a world scented with jasmine and laced with truth, an intimate performance filled with the warmth of being welcomed home, asking what we bring with us and what we leave behind.
This sensory music and storytelling experience weaves family history, cultural duality, and radical love. Join Farah in celebrating community, healing and restoration, in being bold enough to choose to live with joy and love at the centre.
Genesis – Dance
20 Sept, 21:00 (doors: 20:30)
@ Lost Lane
Presented in collaboration with Mother.
Grit your teeth. Shed your skin. Dance to the electrifying beats.
Bionic, stimulating & bare skinned,Shaqira Knightly embraces the power of self-belief through the art of becoming someone else.
This is an invitation to abandon self-doubt and regenerate through dance.Revel in the transformative power of drag under the lights of a queer dancefloor. Come for the spectacle. Stay for the liberation.
It’s Saturday night. Let’s dance.
Raw, hypnotic and deeply human, Genesis is a dazzling story of queer rebirth. Join Shaqira and her dancers as they storm the stage and rule the runway in a fierce expression of gender, sexuality and power.
Stay after the show to dance it out with Ireland’s best queer club night, Mother.
Developed at Dublin Fringe Festival Studios.
Meltybrains – This-Topia
20 – 21 Sept, 20:00
@ The Complex – The Depot
The cult Irish band Meltybrains? return to Dublin Fringe Festival after seven years with a visceral, genre-smashing live show exploring 21st-century digital life through a collaborative ritual of fear, escapism, addiction, collective catharsis and transcendence.
This explosive new work fuses high octane music with dance, visuals and surreal theatricality. It’s not just a comeback; it’s an ecstatic act of resurrection and a dive into our apocalyptic ideation.
Absurd and sacred in equal measure, This-Topia is part theatre, part rave, part group therapy – a meltdown in motion that asks what happens when identity unravels, and what’s waiting on the other side.
Oisín: A Modern Retelling Of The Legend Of Oisín In Tír Na Nóg
19 Sept, 19:00 til 22:00 (doors 18:30)
@ The Racket Space
Did the ancestors leave us ancient wisdom or just generational trauma and a hangover?
Join Irish rapper and producer Blue Niall, and visual artist St. Diabhal for this genre-bending show. Blending hip-hop, Irish traditional music, and Celtic illustrations, it retells the legend of Tír na nÓg through the eyes of a returning emigrant. Oisín ghosted Ireland, now Ireland is ghosting him.
Haunted by memory and driven by hope, this performance explores belonging, exile, and the search for meaning in a collapsing world. Part myth, part meme, part meltdown – this is ancient and urgent.
Niall Byrne is the founder of the most-influential Irish music site Nialler9, where he has been writing about music since 2005. He is the co-host of the Nialler9 Podcast and has written for the Irish Times, Irish Independent, Sunday Times, Totally Dublin, Cara Magazine, Red Bull and more. Niall is a DJ, co-founder of Lumo Club, event curator, Indie Sleaze club promoter, and producer of gigs and monthly listening parties & events in Dublin.
