Blowing Their Top

Blotooth’s pretty-boy vocalist Myles O’Reilly certainly casts a presence onstage tonight, all six foot five of him, and it seems as though the band are undergoing a transformation of sorts. There’s something about the opulent surroundings of the Sugar Club – plush velvet seats, red curtains, cocktails – that sets it apart from Dublin’s cavernous music venues. Unfortunately on a Friday night, there’s the suited and booted, after-work drinking crowd to contend with too, yet all in all it serves as a good backdrop for the burgeoning talents of both Blotooth and The Stranded Circus.

Blotooth’s pretty-boy vocalist Myles O’Reilly certainly casts a presence onstage tonight, all six foot five of him, and it seems as though the band are undergoing a transformation of sorts. Not only do the band announce that this is the last show they will perform as Blotooth (they will soon trade under the moniker Juno Falls), but the amended line-up appear supremely confident, with the newly added second guitar giving the band’s music more weight and sonic power. The tunes themselves veer between the earthy acoustic sounds that have in the past rendered the band similar to the likes of Turin Brakes, and a few impressively emotional, low-cal Radiohead wig-outs that definitely herald a rise of sorts for Juno Falls.

The Stranded Circus are also armed to the teeth with heady emotion. Granted, it’s a shaky start, with various band members clearly showing their nerves with the patented navel-gazing guitar shuffle, but once the raucous crowd have had enough of talking about their promotions at the bank, they’re a rapt audience. Vocalist Conor Brennan has all the makings of a natural and true star.

Armed with come-to-bed eyes and cheekbones you could slit wrists with, he knows his way around a mike stand, and most importantly, looks like he earnestly means every word he sings. A career wooing stadium audiences, canoodling with A-list Hollywood actresses and being charged for bopping photographers on the head Down Under surely beckons.
However, whether or not Brennan will make the journey as ringleader of this particular circus remains to be seen…