The Jazz Festival is the biggest time of the year for music, a weekend for the city to celebrate its rich musical culture and invite the greatest in the world to ply their craft. Who to go to? What to see? Relax and let Music editor Mike McGrath-Bryan pick the highlights of the weekend.
ALL WEEKEND: Record and CD Fair at Unitarian Church: The Soundz Promising record-fair road show is a mainstay of record-collecting in Cork, and its Jazz weekend iteration brings four days of record dealers and rarities from all genres across all formats. Expect to fill that gap in your collection, or even better, your new musical crush! €2 at the door per day's visit.FRIDAY NIGHT: Hope is Noise, I’ll Eat Your Face, Iweriu at Fred Zeppelin’s: Two of Cork's favourite bands return on Friday night as part of Fred Zeppelin’s 15th anniversary celebrations. Hope is Noise's propulsive post-hardcore just keeps evolving and no surer testament to this exists than the new EP This Used to Be a Laugh. I'll Eat Your Face, meanwhile, have seen the jet-powered, ultra-bro supergrind of their most recent album, Hot Brains Terror, committed to CD through Grindscene Records. Joining them is Cork noise outfit Iweriu. A fiscally crippling €0.
SATURDAY NIGHT: Beach House at Cork Opera House: An all-standing gig at the Opera House, dream-poppers Beach House will bust out tunes from their critically acclaimed new album, Bloom. Their previous album, Teen Dream, was littered with huge praise in early 2010 and placed in many Best-Of-Year lists, including number three in NME’s Best Albums of the Year. €22.50 at the box office.
SUNDAY NIGHT: Get the Blessing at Crane Lane: Clive Deamer and Jim Barr of trip-hoppers Portishead's new baby, Get the Blessing, hits the Crane for the Jazz festival, fresh off Deamer's recruitment to Radiohead as second live drummer. A bold fusion of post-rock and jazz, Get the Blessing's sound has endeared them to critics and punters alike. A must-see. A cool €0.
