And now is the summer of our disco tents . . . Next weekend sees the return of one of Ireland's best music festivals - All Together Now at Curraghmore Estate, Waterford. We choose the Top 10 acts to see from the eclectic line-up
Róisín Murphy, Main Stage, Saturday 3 August
Arklow-born musical shapeshifter Róisín Murphy comes alive on stage. On record, her music - especially last year's kaleidoscope career best Hit Parade - has always been intriguing but it’s in the live arena where she really sheds her skin - and makes more costume changes than Liberace.
She has quite a back catalogue to choose from at ATM - four Moloko albums and six solo outings - but no-one will complain if her Saturday night headliner leans heavily on Hit Parade.
Take your pick from the fluttering dance pop of CooCool (a breezy Mimi Ripperton meets Isaac Hayes jam), icy Kate Bush familiar Eureka, or maybe the sinister Grace Jones vibe of What Not To Do.
Chameleon (and possibly comedian, Corinthian and caricature, too), try not to move as you watch and listen to a single-minded maverick in her element. Alan Corr
Kabin Crew and Lisdoonvarna Crew - Belonging Bandstand, Saturday 3 August
Think you can stop what they do? I doubt it!
If you've been living under a rock this past while and somehow missed the Kabin Crew & Lisdoonvarna Crew's uplifting viral hit The Spark, then do yourself a favour and have a listen right now!
The talented young rappers from Cork and Clare will be taking to the Belonging Bandstand stage at All Together Now on Saturday, and we're sure everyone in attendance will be chanting along to The Spark with gusto. Not to be missed! Sarah McIntyre
The Prodigy - Main Stage, Sunday 4 August
The Prodigy will close All Together Now on the main stage on Sunday night and we couldn't think of a better way to cap off the weekend.
The electronic music icons are returning to headline a festival in Ireland for the first time in six years and they always put on an unmissable show.
The Prodigy last performed in Ireland in 2023 with sold-out shows in Musgrave Park, Cork, Fairview Park, Dublin and Ormeau Park, Belfast. It was their first tour since they mourned the loss of lead singer Keith Flint in 2019.
Band members Liam Howlett and Maxim said of their All Together Now appearance: "Get ready for the new wave of fire!!! This one's for Flinty." SM
The Mary Wallopers - Main Stage, Saturday 3 August
Last year, much to the horror of the chattering classes, unreconstructed trad granddads The Wolfe Tones attracted the biggest audience ever recorded at Electric Picnic in its 18-year history. With Trad Nua sweeping the country with the likes of Lankum and Ye Vagabonds, don't be surprised if The Mary Wallopers pull off a similar coup at ATM.
The Dundalk trad punks are now festival veterans and last year’s Irish Rock N Roll album managed to bottle the febrile energy of the rowdy seven-piece’s stage show. Fronted by singing sheep (and I mean that in a good way) Charles and Andrew Hendy, expect a fast and furious set of majestic reels, breakneck banjo playing and something of the mischievousness and nose-thumbing of early Dubliners. This is the best DIY diddley aye on the planet right now.
Cardinals - Lovely Days with Guinness stage, Friday 2 August
Kinsale band Cardinals began the year as the most feted new band in Ireland so their ATM appearance will give them a chance to put some meat on the hype. The five piece of Euan Manning (vocals, cheekbones), Oskar Gudinovic (guitar and keyboards), Aaron Hurley (bass), Kieran Hurley (guitar) and Darragh Manning (accordion) have taken a romantic view of their home county and it looms large on their six-track debut EP, which was released last June.
Grian Chatten of Fontaines D.C. has said they are one of his favourite new acts, while music hacks have compared Cardinals to everybody from Echo and The Bunnymen, Yo La Tengo, The Pogues and even Fables era R.E.M. for their dark and cavernous guitar sound.
With a name like some sixties psych beat group on one of Lenny Kaye's Nuggets compilation albums, these doomy romantics - who are all in their early twenties - have a cinematic widescreen sound that hints at all kinds of future possibilities. AC
Natasha Bedingfield - Main Stage, Saturday 3 August
Natasha Bedingfield will hopefully bring a pocket full of sunshine to the south east over the Bank Holiday Weekend.
Her Grammy award-winning debut album Unwritten, featuring the song of the same name, marked its 20-year anniversary this year - and what better way to continue the celebrations by belting out the theme tune of MTV’s The Hills alongside thousands of fans at Curraghmore Estate.
The anthem saw a resurgence in popularity after it featured in last year’s rom-com, Anyone but You. It also became a viral TikTok moment.
Fun fact: Bedingfield originally wrote the song for her younger brother Joshua for his fourteenth birthday.
While this headline act is sure to bring the craic to Waterford, when it comes to making memories the rest is still unwritten . . . Laura Delaney
Rachael Lavelle - The Circle with Jameson Stage, Saturday, 3 August
Cinematic, digital, existential, elemental, sensory . . . and frickin' trippy, Dublin-born singer and composer Rachael Lavelle could be Ireland’s best kept musical secret. She says her influences include Joni Mitchell, Björk and Erik Satie and to that we might add Laurie Anderson and Tune-Yards. Her compositions revolve around understated passages of atmospheric quietude, jazz-tinged interludes, weird time signatures and her own sublime vocals floating in and out from someone off in the distance.
Behind the music - Rachael Lavelle
She has performed at SXSW Online, Other Voices, opened for Villagers and CMAT and toured with Saint Sister and Anna B Savage and collaborated with artists such as Crash Ensemble, Peter Broderick, Glasshouse, SlapBang, and Saint Sister.
Lavelle’s bewitchingly strange debut, Big Dreams, was nominated for the 2024 RTÉ Choice Music Prize and is described as "an existential coming-of-age album glued together by the voice of Doireann Ní Bhriain, the announcer on the Luas system in Dublin." No wonder her music is so transportive. AC
Muireann Bradley - Something Kind of Wonderful Stage, Sunday, 4 August
Prepare to be wowed by some Ballybofey blues!. Supernaturally gifted Donegal teen guitar prodigy Muireann Bradley is still only 17 but she sings and plays like a Delta blues old-timer. She shot to prominence after her appearance on Jools Holland's Hootenanny programme on BBC on New Year's Eve 2023 and her performance of When The Levee Breaks on the Late Late Show last January made people really sit up and listen. She specializes in performing acoustic fingerpicking country and ragtime blues styles from the 1920s, 30s and 40s as well as later folk, country and Americana. Her acclaimed debut album I Kept These Old Blues is now on its third pressing. Somewhere out there at some astral crossroads, Rory Gallagher is grinning proudly. AC
James Vincent McMorrow, Main Stage, Friday 2 August
Earlier in the week, the Dublin singer-songwriter said he is "beyond ready" to play live in Ireland again as he announced a national tour kicking off in November - and it sounds like his stint at ATN is going to be one hell of a warm-up.
Known for his eclectic and vulnerable lyrics, McMorrow recently released his seventh studio album, Wide Open, Horses, featuring the singles Never Gone, Give Up, Call Me Back, and Things We Tell Ourselves.
According to McMorrow, it’s the best and most important record he’s made.
With his signature vocals and charming stage presence, this is one act that is guaranteed to give you horsepower over the weekend. LD
The Murder Capital - The Circle with Jameson Stage, Friday, 2 August
Perhaps the most ferocious live act in Ireland right now, The Murder Capital make another very welcome festival appearance at ATM next weekend. Fronted by magnetic vocalist James McGovern, here is a band who leave it all on stage with open-hearted passion and pure catharsis. McGovern goes to extremes and the band reach a hypnotic pitch of energy and ferocity as they locate moments of beauty amid the maelstrom. Their celebrated debut When I Have Fears (the title came from a poem by proto-Morrissey, John Keats) was a harrowing affair but on last year's cryptically titled follow-up Gigi’s Recovery, The Murder Capital seemed to be embracing the light. Expect tracks from both and maybe new material. You’ll be swept away. AC
