Gig of the Week: There’s only one direction for Harry Styles — up into the stratosphere

Harry Styles

Wednesday, June 22nd; Aviva Stadium, Dublin; 6pm; ticketmaster.ie

Of all the One Directioners, Harry Styles has emerged as the most stylish and interesting, and possessed of all the top pop star traits: prodigious talent, ambiguous sexuality, a penchant for a bit of divilry and an inquiring musical mind. We’ll always love our Niall Horan — he’s the Lou Reed to Styles’s David Bowie — but it’s Harry who’s really hitting the pop stratosphere, topping the Billboard charts with his self-titled debut and his second album, Fine Line. Since then he’s become the first man to have a Vogue cover all to himself, and he’ll soon be starring in the upcoming movie My Policeman. He’s added the Aviva to his stadium tour, and anyone who caught his headline performance at Coachella will know that he’s going to deliver a serious show for his Irish fans, which will include such hits as Golden, Adore You, Watermelon Sugar and his current smash, As It Was.

Phoebe Bridgers

Monday, June 20th; Fairview Park, Dublin; 7pm; ticketmaster.ie

The Californian singer-songwriter-producer has become the United States’ indie sweetheart, with Grammy nominations and huge acclaim for her fab second album, Punisher, and now she’s in Ireland for a gig in Fairview Park in Dublin, and while we’re watching her and her band stalk the stage in their skeleton suits, we’ll also be watching out for Paul Mescal. (Apparently she and the Irish actor are doing a line). Expect sad songs delivered with panache and irony — and a few timely takedowns of modern tyranny. Fairview Park will be a busy place this coming week, with concerts by Primal Scream (Wednesday, June 22nd), Inhaler (Friday, June 25th) and St Vincent (Sunday, June 26th).

Elbow

Monday, June 20th; 3Arena, Dublin; 6.30pm; Tuesday, June 21st; Waterfront Hall, Belfast; 7pm; ticketmaster.ie

Elbow — along with every other band in the world — had to postpone their 2020 tour due to the Covid-19 pandemic, but rather than sit at home twiddling their thumbs, the band members all got busy writing material for a new album, exchanging their ideas with other band members online. The result was the 2021 album Flying Dream 1, which featured quieter, more reflective songs, even by Elbow’s usually restrained standards. We’ll get to hear some of these gorgeous tunes, along with favourites such as Grounds for Divorce, Lippy Kids and One Day Like This.

Alanis Morissette

Tuesday, June 21st; 3Arena, Dublin; 6.30pm; ticketmaster.ie

Irish Alanisettes will be out in force at the 3Arena when the Canadian singer-songwriter returns to Dublin four years after her triumphant gigs in the Iveagh Gardens in Dublin and Live at the Marquee in Cork. It’s been 27 years since her album Jagged Little Pill rocked our worlds, and offered a different interpretation of the word “ironic”, her cultural impact is still as strong as ever. In 2019 the jukebox musical Jagged Little Pill, featuring such hits as Ironic, Hand in My Pocket and You Oughta Know, debuted on Broadway, and she released her ninth album, Such Pretty Forks in the Road in 2020, just in time to help her fans get through the pandemic. Has she still got it? You definitely know.

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Party Scene

Wednesday, June 22nd to Saturday, July 2nd; Project Arts Centre, Dublin; thisispopbaby.com

The choreographer Philip Connaughton and the writer and director Phillip McMahon have come together for this exuberant collaboration looking at queer club culture through a boozy lens and a woozy chemical prism chemical. This provocative dance-theatre show explores an underworld of sweaty nightclubs and chemsex, touching on topics of identity, intimacy and isolation. Party Scene had its world premiere at Cork Midsummer Festival last week, and now starts a two-week run in the Project.

Kaleidoscope 2022

Friday, June 24th to Sunday, June 26th; Russborough House, Bray, Co Wicklow; kaleidoscopefestival.ie

The family festival returns to Russborough House after a two-year hiatus, and my, haven’t the kids grown big over the past two years. If your wains aren’t already reared by now, bring them down to Kaleidoscope for a very family-friendly weekend. (A limited number of day tickets are also available.) Among the musical attractions are two old hands at entertaining the masses: Neil Hannon, aka The Divine Comedy, and Jerry Fish, who will be bringing along his Electric Sideshow. This year, the organisers have planned even more fun for families, including porridge parties, baby raves, laughter yoga, bubble performance, science shows and the world’s largest bouncy castle.

West Cork Chamber Music Festival

Friday, June 24th to Sunday, July 3rd; Bantry, Co Cork; westcorkmusic.ie

To say the musicians of the West Cork Chamber Music Festival are delighted to be back performing live — well, it’s like saying Mozart is pretty nifty at knocking out a tune. The popular festival is back in Bantry and surrounds with more than 70 concerts featuring 60 professional musicians and more than 20 students, performing major cycles from Biber, Bach and Weinberg along with seminal works by Haydn, Schubert and Bartók. The festival will be built around four top international string quartets — Prague’s Pavel Haas Quartet, Belgium’s Danel Quartet, Germany’s Signum Quartet and London’s Doric Quartet. The festival will continue its great work supporting young musicians, so look out for future stars including violinist Mairéad Hickey, pianist Nathalia Milstein, cellist Ella van Poucke and violinist Diamanda Dramm.

The Eagles

Friday, June 24th; Aviva Stadium, Dublin; 6pm; ticketmaster.ie

I seem to recall The Eagles announcing a farewell tour many moons ago, but the mega-selling country rockers are still treading the boards and seemingly hell-bent on giving The Rolling Stones a run for their money. So who’s still in the band? Don Henley, Joe Walsh and Timothy B Schmidt form the core, with the country-rock star Vince Gill joining the posse, and the late Glenn Frey replaced by his son Deacon Frey. It’s been recently announced Frey is quitting the band to pursue his own young folks-type project, but whoever makes up the numbers onstage, you can be sure they’ll roll out the hits, including Take it Easy, Lyin’ Eyes, Take it to the Limit, One of These Nights and Hotel California.

Girl from the North Country

Saturday, June 25th to Sunday, July 30th; 3Olympia, Dublin; ticketmaster.ie

Imagine being asked by Bob Dylan to take a bunch of his songs and weave them into a stage musical. It’s a Dylanologist’s dream, and Conor McPherson must have been pinching himself when the call came from Dylan’s people. Apparently the singer had seen McPherson’s work and was so impressed he entrusted his songs to the Irish playwright. The result has wowed audiences on Broadway and now starts a run in Dublin that is bound to sell out and spark demand for a return run. After Dylan saw the play, he declared: “My songs couldn’t be in better hands.”