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In The Meadows: a deeper look at the lineup at the one-day Dublin folk and alternative festival
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In The Meadows: a deeper look at the lineup at the one-day Dublin folk and alternative festival

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Tuesday, December 19, 2023
Lankum

The prospect of a one-day festival in Dublin city with a specific focus of folk and alternative music is a smart addition to the Irish festival landscape, with Pod returning to the green pastures of the Royal Hospital Kilmainham on the grounds of IMMA with In The Meadows, where it hosts Forbidden Fruit every year, for an event with a contrasting focus for its inaugural year…

It’s a smart move also to ask the band are the forefront of folk music in Ireland right now to not only play the event, but also to co-curate the lineup, and here is a deeper look at what we can expect so far at In The Meadows.

1.

Mogwai

One of the finest post-rock bands to ever do it, Scotland’s finest Mogwai’s long illustrious career has never dipped in quality since Young Team arrived in 1997, and their most recent album, As the Love Continues topped the UK album charts in 2021.

Mogwai continue to find new paths and textures in their majorly instrumental music, and live sets of late, include songs from their chart-topping album, 2022 single ‘Boltfor’ and Mogwai classics ‘My Father, My King’ ‘Mogwai Fear Satan’ and ‘2 Rights Make 1 Wrong’.

2.

This Is The Kit

Kate Stables’ folk project is one of the most fruitful of recent years from England, and This Is The Kit already has a long-established connection with Irish audiences across the last decade.

The Bristol band are now four albums deep, offering a well of lilting full-band folk music, that nods to alternative band and jazz sounds, as heard on 2023’s Careful Of Your Keepers album.

3.

Black Country, New Road

Since the English alternative band arrived on the scene with their debut album For The First Time in 2021, it’s been all constant evolution.

When vocalist Isaac Wood left upon the release of their Ninja Tune studio album Ants From Up There 12 months on, the band have carried on with a relentless experimentalism that has seen them move from art-rock to chamber pop to a singular entity of their own. Frankly, who knows what they’ll sound like by June, but that unknowing is part of the fun with a band like Black Country, New Road.

4.

John Francis Flynn

 Look Over The Wall, See The Sky, the second album from Dublin folk singer John Francis Flynn is a 2023 favourite, and lives up to the idea of true interpretation, recontextualising old Dublin-associated songs with modern techniques, and imaginative production that breathes new life into old songs.

Flynn likes to follow the song wherever it takes him using his booming baritone to lead the way among instrumentation that has developed into a natural place where analogue tradition and digital experimentalism combine with a natural ease.

Flynn is a traditionalist operating with a exploratory lens, who is at ease at a trad session as he is on a big outdoor stage.

Lankum. Photo: Sorcha Frances Ryder.

5.

Lankum

An dubh doom. The Dublin trad-band’s Lankum’s fourth album False Lankum is widely considered one of the best albums of 2023, and it has also topped both our Irish and all albums lists this year, and was nominated for the Mercury Prize this year.

The band’s headliner status at In The Meadows and their curatorial involvement is another sign of the four-piece’s growing influence. And while the band’s albums are top tier releases, live, Lankum bring that dark dynamic to the stage, creating swelling low-end and rumbling drones that draws as much from metal as it does from the traditional Irish music songbook. In The Meadows is their only Dublin show for 2024. 

In The Meadows Poster

In The Meadows Tickets

Tickets are available now via Ticketmaster Ireland & usual outlets priced from €59.35 including booking fee.

More acts will be announced in 2024.

Buy tickets here

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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 cohost of the Nialler9 Podcast and has written for the Irish Times, Irish Independent, Cara Magazine, Sunday Times, Totally Dublin, Red Bull and more. Niall is a DJ, founder of Lumo Club, event curator and producer of gigs, parties & events.