If I am one of the few humans who embraces the grizzly month of January, while others kick and scream their way back to post-holiday life, I can honestly say that I have four-day live music parade Ones To Watch to thank for it.
Since 2010, the Camden St. mini-festival has been taking music lovers like myself in from the biting midwinter cold, providing us with official introductions to our new favourite bands and giving us something worthwhile to talk about, all for a truly bargainsome price (€5 for a night or €10 for the whole shebang, with a free pint thrown in for good measure).
This year, as has become tradition, a 50-strong line-up matches intriguing newcomers (Cave Ghosts, Soil Creep, HUNK!) with seasoned players (Girl Band, Windings, The Hot Sprockets). The standard of musicianship is undeniably high, but, as many of these acts are not yet accustomed to life in the limelight, there’s plenty of room for goofs, improvisation and experimentation, and the festival is all the more exciting for it.
In 2013, highlights include 22-year-old New York-based Dubliner Sorcha Richardson, whose dreamweaving, guitar and keys-based folk is perfectly suited to the Whelan’s main stage, the deliciously ramshackle, lo-fi melodies of Popical Island foursome Skelocrats, and Alphastates frontwoman Cat Dowling, whose solo project masterfully marries understated soul to theatrical lyrics.
Elsewhere, Wicklow alt. rockers Croupier impress with dueling guitars, shapeshifting rhythms and some impassioned whooping, as well as a chunk of new material that soon has the Whelan’s staff kneeling on their stools for a better look. Similarly, the divinely intimate and only slightly spooky harmonising of sister act Twin Headed Wolf is so bewitching, punters actually feel compelled to yell out the word ‘Lovely!’ after each folky, old-world ballad.
Galway foursome Dott may risk rotting the crowd’s teeth with a mushy trinity of freshly-squeezed garage pop anthems (‘Love You Forever’, ‘Love You Too’ and ‘Let’s Do It (Let’s Fall In Love)’) which, I must admit, turn out to be exquisitely sweet, and, with members from Ireland, Pakistan, Nigeria, France and Zimbabwe, multinational sixsome The Notas all but steal the show with some fiercely catchy and effortlessly accomplished dance rock, in the vein of Bloc Party and Wu Lyf.
Also laying claim to the Performance of the Festival is quirk factory Myles Manley, who, aided by his band The Little People, causes a beautiful racket in the Whelan’s Upstairs venue with a surreal collection of grungey rock hymns.
This just leaves time to mention the stylised indie rock of Gangs, efficiently matched by their attention-grabbing on-stage clobber (a man with a feather boa for a guitar strap will always carry my best wishes with him) and the two dumbfoundingly gritty voices behind blues outfit Rufus Coates & The Blackened Trees, possessed by the steel-lunged Jess Smith and the frontman of the moniker.
A year of marvellous music awaits.