The Button Factory in Dublin’s Temple Bar is 30 years old this year. It opened in 1996 as the Temple Bar Music Centre, built as a home for Irish music, and became the Button Factory in 2007 after a refurbishment that took its name from the building’s original use. It has since added the Centre Point club strand, Curveball upstairs and won IMRO’s Dublin Venue of the Year award in 2025.
Its BF30 anniversary programme has kicked off and features this run of shows continues tonight with Tortoise (Nov 2/3), Modeselektor (Nov 6), OXN (Dec 9), Just Mustard (Dec 15) and NewDad (Dec 21).
Here are 15 gigs and nights from the Temple Bar Music Centre and Button Factory years that stand out, in chronological order.
Death in Vegas, Temple Bar Music Centre – February 11th 2000
Words by Nialler9
Death In Vegas were one of my first loves in terms of live bands and alternative music. So my friends and I would go and see Death In Vegas live at festivals like Witnness in the early 2000s. Once second album The Contino Sessions was released in 1999, Death In Vegas had moved from the electronic minimal dub of 1997’s Dead Elvis to a fully-fledged psychedelic soul electronic rock band with a full live setup.
Always anchored by DiV mastermind Richard Fearless and producer Tim Holmes at the back of the stage, the Temple Bar Music Centre show was a real musical flashpoint for me. There was nothing cooler than the hollowed-out psychedelic rock of ‘Dirge’ with Dot Allison, the Iggy Pop vocal derangement of ‘Aisha’, the brooding ‘Soul Auctioneer’ with Bobby Gillespie, the vaguely Eastern lounge track ‘Aladdin’s Story’ or the psych-sitar full band gothic euphoria of ‘Neptune City’ and while the vocalists weren’t present, the band brought a live dynamism to these songs that meant we had to be at every Death In Vegas Irish show for the next five years or so.
Godspeed You Black Emperor! supported by Fly Pan Am and Sigur Rós, Temple Bar Music Centre – April 2nd 2000
The years leading up to 2000 weighed heavy with pre-millennium tension. The publicity averse Canadian post-rock nine piece Godspeed You Black Emperor! embodied that sense of a neglected, broken-down society. Recordings of rambling men raging against the dying of the light overlaid their music. And through their swelling, rallying noise they offered a hope upon which a new world could be built. There could have been nine of them on the packed stage that night, there could have been 90, it was hard to tell through the smoke and dry ice. An amp may have blown amidst the cacophonous crescendoes.
Sigur Rós supported. It was like they came from another planet, or as it’s known, Iceland. They sang in Hopelandic (a made up language), conjured mysterious melancholic drones from their guitar with a bow, and sang like angels. Emerging from the darkness of the Music Centre that night and of that time, both bands pointed to brave new alternative ways.
Words by Paddy McDonnell.
Even after 26 years and thousands of gigs later, the night the unknown Sigur Rós and Godspeed, You Black Emperor! played at the Temple Bar Music Centre in April 2000 is hands down my most unforgettable night of music. This was a time when most of my circle of friends were immersed in electronic music, just after the closure of The Funnel and the peak of nights at Switch. I can’t really remember how we ended up at a night of post-rock, but it was close to a religious experience. It is hard to describe what it was like to hear Sigur Ros for the very first time so close you could touch them. I have a flashbulb memory of being by the speaker top right when Jonsi started singing. They have been overplayed to death now, but it was like hearing an alien sing seeing him perform for the first time. There was no time to recover when eleven or so members of Godspeed got on stage and blasted the crowd with endless epic songs building wave after wave, ending in a complete frenzy. They were touring Lift Your Skinny Fists Like Antennas to Heaven. It was a privilege to first hear those songs live. I get shivers down my spine just thinking about it.
Words by Dorothy Kelly.
Richard D James (Aphex Twin) @ Rephlex Disco Assault Systems, Temple Bar Music Centre – June 11th 2000
Words by Nialler9
Richard D James aka Aphex Twin played a rare show in Temple Bar Music Centre in on June 11th 2000 as part of a Rephlex Records night on a bill that also featured Rephlex Master Control, Cyclob and Mike Dred, with live support from The Alpha Incident.
I was there that night, and distinctly remember the barrage of Richard’s set, full of chaotic breaks, with the man DJing kneeling down behind decks so he wasn’t really visible.
This prompted my pal, Cormac, equally enamoured with Aphex Twin, to crawl in under the black drape on the stage under the desk to shake Richard’s hand which he received enthusiastically. Richard D James’ set featured some of his own tracks ‘Phlange Phace’, ‘Afx237 v7’, ‘Mt Saint Michel + Saint Michaels Mount’ and ‘Pancake Lizard’ along with tunes from Squarepusher, Hellfish and DJ Pierre.
We were into Rephlex’s 2000 compilation The Braindance Coincidence released a couple of months before so we were equally excited to see if Cylob played his jokey vocoder tune ‘Rewind’ which I think he did.
The night was billed as REPHLEX DISCO ASSAULT SYSTEMS INC and presented by Kidney & Rephresh. The former promoter is Eoghan Kidney who as he tells it, was 20-years-old and put the gig on after his grandmother passed away and left him some money, and he used it to put on a gig:
Words by Eoghan Kidney.
“I emailed Rephlex and asked who could I book for 600 quid or so – at this point I didn’t even consider asking for Aphex as I presumed I couldn’t afford him. Grant at Rephlex was super nice, and I think he liked the idea that I was spending my inheritance on a Rephlex party. Then one evening ,I thought fuck it, and asked if RDJ could play and to my surprise he came back with a yes, which totally upped the stakes overnight.
Of course it ended up being a little more expensive, but nothing like i’m sure he commands now, and it was still super discounted as I think it was more of a mates lol trip for the Rephlex crew.
Another set of friends of friends hooked up with me and asked if they could put their DJs on in the bar and put their logo on the flier as they had just started the first Irish electronic music label – this was Paul and John from Front End Synthetics, which is still going .
Dunk Murphy aka Sunken Foal was a stalwart of the label from its beginning as part of the Ambulance duo. I thought it would be great to support the local scene so I said yes, and we are good friends to this day. I also had a classmate support them with a live set up – The Alpha Incident – who only ever released one track.
I was an animation student at the time and a mate made an edit of all our weird graduate films which we put on a loop as visuals. The venue were incredibly supportive during the whole thing.
The show was jam packed, intense rave vibes for 6 hours. Cylob dressed up in a banana costume and Richard played mostly while hiding behind the decks but popped up with loads of energy every now and then. I wish I had a tape of the gig, I have zero recollection of the music they played as my adrenalin was so high during the evening. Even my mum and dad showed up, and I think they had a blast.
I made a few quid from the gig, more than the performers as I don’t think anyone expected it to be so rammed, but i think because it was right after Windowlicker was released, Aphex had a sudden popularity surge.
I thought I had a promotion career ahead of me after that gig, and I put on a Max Tundra gig the following year which I lost loads of money on (my fault not Ben’s but we ended up being pals and i made a video for him with our collective Del 9 which i still like Max Tundra – Lysine (2002) – we also made lots of music vids including one for Luke Vibert that ended up being released on a Warp DVD).
That loss helped me realise that the AFX gig was more of a fluke, and the promotion game wasn’t for me, so i went into the not so highly lucrative music video director game instead, and have had a diverse ADHD led creative career since. looking back, me being a quite insular sort of arty dude, it helped me come out of my shell a bit and make some friends – it happened to be my birthday too so I got a little drunk and someone gave me a bottle of champagne which I sprayed on the crowd, which got a mixed response. Istill get the odd person saying to me “you were the kid that put on the Aphex gig, right?” so its a little bit of personal moment for me.
Richard played again in the venue in 2001 and a video of that performance is on Youtube:
The Strokes, Temple Bar Music Centre, June 15th 2001
Words by Simon Roche.
The hottest band from New York, playing their first Dublin six weeks before the release of their future classic debut album Is This It? One to say you were there, as Simon Roche was…
This was perhaps the last pre-modern internet, insanely hyped, hottest ticket gig in Dublin. The TBMC has just got in in time to land the next biggest band in the world and they could have played Slane with the hype that lurched ahead of them. The place was rammed but most notable was how many social types were there. The crowd was a big shift from the usual core in the venue; lots of big hair, smart shoes, a bit air-kissy. The beauty of the gig was how the band lived up to the slouchy, louche attitude. Hardly talking, barely engaging and rolling mop-haired through the future classics from the first EP and what would be come the entirety of Is This It? Over before it started, not even close to an hour of a gig, but they set the stall out – the embodiment of the attitude we had wanted to get a sweaty touch of. And all the pretenders in the crowd were all dressed up and nowhere to go at 10pm.
Glassjaw, Temple Bar Music Centre – April 5th 2003
Words by Gavin Elsted
Despite the internet insisting that their debut Dublin show was in Tripod (RIP), Glassjaw actually made their Irish bow at the Temple Bar Music Centre on April 5th, 2003 and I was there (losing my edge). As an excitable little post-hardcore nerd, I spent the journey up from Kildare excitedly playing out different scenarios in my mind. Would they cancel last minute (singer Daryl Palumbo’s Chrohn’s flareups put paid to a lot of their touring plans in the past)? Would they be any use live? Am I going to get absolutely annihilated in the pit during ‘Tip Your Bartender’? In order: no, absolutely unbelievable, yes.
The ‘Jaw, owing to the strength of their records (they were touring Worship and Tribute at the time which is a stone cold classic), footage of their frenetic live shows and the relative rarity of seeing the post-hardcore torch bearers in the flesh inspired cult-like devotion amongst their fans. I found myself getting hockeyed around the slippy dancefloor to ‘Mu Empire’, pogoing wildly to ‘Pretty Lush’ and causing myself irreversible gig-neck during a particularly angsty ‘Cosmopolitan Bloodloss’. One of those shows that goes on to inspire attendees to form bands and leaves everyone completely breathless. I’ve never been the same since.
Broken Social Scene, Temple Bar Music Centre – February 11th 2006
Words by Nialler9
The Canadian collective’s Temple Bar Music Centre show in 2006 was so earth-shattering to me that in the Nialler9 review, I called it “one of the best gigs I’d been to in a long long time”. It lived up to two years of anticipation, with ‘Anthems for a Seventeen Year-Old Girl’, ‘Shoreline’, ‘Stars and Sons’, ‘Fire Eye’d Boy’ and ‘It’s All Gonna Break’ played with a five-piece brass section. The sound was excellent, and Kevin Drew jumped into the crowd to hug fans before the end.
It was a crystallisation of what I still do for a living – shouting about music I like. The fact that a Canadian band who didn’t get any media attention could rock up to Dublin in 2006 and fill the place and be so good live, spurred me on to making more of my blog, now 21 years strong.
In the comments on the post (back when people left comments on blogs), PMC of In Fact Ah said: “I would go further and say this was the best ever gig ive been to in Dublin. Like yourself I have been waiting a long time for them after first being introduced to them in Canada in 2002 when I lived in Toronto for a year. ‘Anthems for a 17 year old girl’ was my personal highlight, I was literaly tingling all over. They were so utterly cohesive on stage, every song perfectly balanced and each musician contributing seamlessly to the overall sound.”
Battles, Temple Bar Music Centre – May 25th 2007
Words by Nialler9
I saw Battles at Temple Bar Music Centre, weeks before the venue closed for its renovation. The Mirrored tour was a sell-out, and the band were everything I’d hoped for: the complicated musical expression of fun, danceable rock music. John Stanier’s drumming was a revelation, Dave Konopka played most of the knotty guitar and bass riffs from the back of the stage, and Ian Williams and Tyondai Braxton improvised more than I’d expected, at times playing guitar and keyboards at once.
The build into surprise alien rock hit ‘Atlas’ set off a mosh pit, ‘Hi Lo’ showed off the band’s tangled interplay, and I still remember the thrill when the drums hit into ‘SZ2’ . An exhilarating band at the height of their singular power.
The Jimmy Cake, Button Factory – April 18th 2008
Words by Nialler9
I fell pretty hard for Spectre and Crown, the third album from Dublin band The Jimmy Cake in 2008. The band’s first two records, 2001’s Brains and 2002’s Dublin Gone Everybody Dead were albums in the post-rock vein but the Jimmy Cake were always pushing the boundaries of what was the norm of the genre with horns, accordions and more people on stage than a normal band would.
By the time Spectre and Crown appeared in 2008, the band’s sound and personnel had swelled to nine musicians and the album’s majestic orchestral tones were a departure to what had gone before, and this album launch featured a string quartet and extra brass to accommodate the vision along with piano, accordion, clarinet, trumpet, guitar and sax.
My review at the time used words like “rapturous”, “wonderfully precise” and a “personal triumph” and I still remember the feel of the band’s enlarged sound striking our ears and eyes that night. Video.
As it happens, the band are playing Brains in full on on on Saturday November 28th 2026 as part of NCH landmarks series.
Words by Nialler9
Nightflight 007: Todd Terje, Button Factory – September 2008
Words by Nialler9
Some of the best nights in the venue happened after 11pm when the venue turned into a club, which still happens to this day with the Centrepoint nights and recent new smaller space Curveball upstairs.
In September 2008, Nightflight club night brought the Norwegian disco don Todd Terje to the Button Factory, and some of the night survives as a 31-minute live recording on Mixcloud, a cosmic disco and house set that includes tracks by JMJ and Superpitcher.
Q-Tip, Button Factory – March 2009
Words by Nialler9
It’s not every day you get to see one of your heroes but that’s what happened Q-Tip came to Dublin for his first Irish solo show at the Button Factory in March 2009, with a live band and a set built around his excellent solo album The Renaissance.
My brief review called it “a masterful live band performance”, with A Tribe Called Quest songs including ‘Check the Rhime’, ‘Scenario’, ‘Find a Way’, ‘Award Tour’ and ‘Electric Relaxation’ in the mix along with Renaissance hit ‘Move’, ‘Getting Up’ and ‘Life Is Better’.
Tribe reformed after that and played some brief and memorable shows but Q-Tip has played solo only a handful of times since that night.
Road Records Farewell Party, Button Factory – September 10th 2010
Words by Nialler9
A few months after the closure of the independent underground record shop Road Records on Fade Street (which is now Neighbourhood Threat), Timo in u:mack put on a farewell to Road Records gig featuring a load of Irish artists who had released and sold music through the shop and were thankful for what Dave and Julie did there for over a decade.
The night featured performances from The Redneck Manifesto who put in an all-timer performance, one of many of the great Dublin gigs that the instrumental rock band put on which came after the release oftheir album Friendship. The night also featured a once-off reformed set from ’90s garage band Female Hercules, Decal’s Alan O’Boyle and Dublin drummer David Lacey performing as Legion Of Two, the experimental-pop of Patrick Kelleher and his Cold Dead Hands, then 21-year-old virtuoso guitarist Cian Nugent and Road Records DJs. The night was more a celebration of the shop and Dublin’s independent scene of the time.
MF DOOM, Button Factory – October 2010
Words by Nialler9
It wasn’t a night without flaws but then when you are paying in to see the Supervillain you expect some dastardly outcomes. Arriving 90 minutes late on stage and playing a short 45 minute set with crowd booing doesn’t sound like the ideal circumstances for a great gig but this was MF DOOM we are talking about – the man can rap like no other and his mere mortal presence in front of us felt like a miracle. At least he didn’t send an imposter.
When he did show up, he meant business and played a greatest hits set drawn from his rich catalogue – Madvillainy, Viktor Vaughn, MM..Food, Born Like This and Operation: Doomsday, with ‘Rhymes Like Dimes’ and ‘America’s Most Blunted’, ‘Accordion’, ‘All Caps’, ‘Meatgrinder’ , ‘Hoe Cakes’, among the songs.
It was the only time I saw MF DOOM, one of my favourite artists, and I will remember it fondly.
St Vincent, Button Factory – November 2011
Strange Mercy was the album that Annie Clark took a real turn towards the grand ambition of her later work, and this 2011 gig (with Cate Le Bon on support) was exemplified by craft, poise but mostly, the songs which had extra layers than what came before.
Before the stage shows, this was St. Vincent, under some impressive lights, brandished a demure intensity that occasionally erupted via Clark’s explosive guitar playing – now established as one of the finest guitarists in rock but this fact was only revealing itself to a wider audience at this time, and Strange Mercy and this tour took her from cult-indie musician to a major figurehead in indie-rock.
As heard in the Button Factory that night, all-timer songs like ‘Cruel’, ‘Surgeon’, ‘Year of The Tiger’, and ‘Cheerleader’ rubbed shoulders with early highlights – ‘Actor Out of Work’ and ‘Your Lips Are Red’. It was one of those visceral gigs where you knew you wouldn’t see the artist in a room that small again.
Darkside, Button Factory – March 25th 2014
Hidden Agenda brough Nicolas Jaar and Dave Harrington’s Darkside project to the Button Factory in 2014 on their Psychic tour, and they brought smoke and mirrors with them – along with their own sound desk and a large rotating circular mirror that reflected light over the crowd.
Darkside’s music on record was subtle and slowly revealing. Here those morphing changes were festival-sized, and borderless – stretching across house, ambient and dance-funk with no clear boundaries between sections, often peerlessly. It left the impression that other artists needed to step up to their level. Darkside didn’t stick at that level themselves and had an eight year gap between Psychic and their next album, and didn’t return to Ireland in that time, but this gig remained a master work.
15. Magdalena Bay, Button Factory – November 16th 2024
Words by Colm Cahalane / Fourth Best.
I wasn’t any kind of super-fan when I bought the ticket but that record Imaginal Disk changed that – probably one of the most addictive albums of the decade, so clearly in its own lane – bringing influences from everything between hyperpop and prog rock, not a wasted second on the entire tracklist, with some truly mad DIY artwork and visuals too. (I’ll be trying this week, for the second year in a row, to do the album artwork for my Halloween costume).
It brought some hype along; one of those gigs where between it being announced and the doors opening the rest of the world caught on. I know a lot of people who were desperate for tickets for it. I think the Button Factory was the smallest venue they did on that Europe tour too; everywhere else got Vicar St. sized venues and I think a good few of them were venue upgrades, so they had a production with them. First thing you’d see walking into the room is uncomfortably blown up footage of an eyeball looping on a kind of winged-portal-screen thing in the middle of the room. They’d taken this insanely detailed world they’d built around the album and brought it fully to life up there. Props, stage design, set-pieces, costume changes. No support; the whole record in order, and a few of their earlier tunes thrown in there.
There’s a great video of them doing a late-night TV show in the States right before that Button Factory show, and absent of any videos of my own, take my word that it felt exactly like this for the whole thing; boundless energy. And if I can single out one aspect of the show that really elevated it above the record, it would be Nick Villa giving it absolutely everything on the drums. There’s some footage from behind the drumkit on the night and that fella was locked in.
They played about a hundred more shows on that tour. An instantly-sold-out Vicar Street night followed, playing to tens of thousands at festivals, opening for Billie Eilish, all of that. It’s not even been two years since that Button Factory show and it feels like they’re still blowing up off of that record. I’d say I got good value for my €25. Easily the best Button Factory show for me – but honourable mention to Irish Hash Mafia.
Nialler9’s Honourable Mentions of Highlights from Button Factory and Temple Bar Music Centre over the years.
- Pavement, TBMC, August 19th 1997
- Sinéad O’Connor, TBMC, November 10th, 1998
- Elliott Smith, TMBC, December 6th 1998
- Doves, TBMC, Nov 25th 2000
- At The Drive In, TBMC, Dec 10th 2000
- Mogwai, TBMC, Jan 2006
- Warp Records Night, TMBC, March 2006 (Clark, Milanese, Vex’d, T-Woc, Solen and guests.)
- Deerhoof, TBMC, Wednesday August 23rd 2006 )
- Pendulum, TMBC, Sunday, June 4, 2006 (Remedy Presents – with Zinc, Deep Blue, Razor )
- LFO, TMBC, Nov 4th 2006 ((U:Mack presents with support DJ Rob Hall)
- Saul Williams, Button Factory, Monday May 12th 2008
- And So I Watch You From Afar, Button Factory, 2011
- Modeselektor, Button Factory, October 2011
- Le Galaxie EP launch, Button Factory, 2012, with Nanu Nanu, Ships, Sleep Thieves and Adultrock (€10, 9pm)
- Fuck Buttons, Button Factory, Saturday September 14th 2013, with The Haxan Cloak and Forrests
- New Jackson, Button Factory, Tuesday December 31st 2013, with White Collar Boy, Forrests, Lumigraph and CLU
- Sophie, Button Factory, June 14th, 2014, with Eclair Fifi
- Hidden Agenda & Phantasy presents Erol Alkan and Daniel Avery, Button Factory, Saturday January 25th 2014 (from RA)
- Wyvern Lingo, Button Factory, 2016
- New Jackson, From Night To Night album launch, Button Factory, Sunday April 30th 2017, with DIP DJs (from RA)
- The Go Team, Button Factory, Thursday May 3rd 2018 (support Super Extra Extra Bonus Party)
- Kelly Lee Owens, Button Factory, November 19, 2021
- Dry Cleaning, Button Factory, February 15th 2022
- Osees, Button Factory, Tuesday May 23rd 2023
- Adebisi Shank, Button Factory, August 22nd and 23rd, 2025
- Fred Again, Button Factory, August 25th, 2025
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.
