Bell X1 prove they’re still at the top of their game

Groove Tube with Cian O’Connell

It’s hardly a surprise that Bell X1 would have produced one of the highlights of this summer’s Galway International Arts Festival last Friday night, as a sell-out crowd braved the rain for acclaimed Irish rockers who’ve done this so many time before.  Many have come and gone in the decades the band have now spent selling out the country’s best venues – and their fluid, engaging performance in the Big Top was a powerful reminder of why Bell X1 remain at the top of their game.

And yet the Kildare rock group – now comprising Paul Noonan, Dave Geraghty and Dominic Phillips – were once on the brink of separation when Damien Rice walked out on then-named Juniper almost a quarter of a century ago.

Few then could have predicted the success and longevity of the outfit at that time but twenty-one years and seven LPs later they remain crucial, influential innovators in Irish music.

Any act that lasts more than a couple of years in music is forced to adapt their sound and that has never been a problem for Bell X1.

The group’s music teeters on the brink of acoustic folk and loud rock and toeing that line has kept their sound interesting and fresh since the release of debut album Neither Am I all the way back in 2000.

The Big Top set, then, was appropriately diverse. Noonan drove an intense, energetic performance from start to finish and championed a Galway crowd to whom he and his bandmates are no strangers.

Several times, the frontman remarked on the band’s history in Galway and the sea of gigs they have played in the Big Top and, of course, the Róisín Dubh. There was a sense of celebration – the band felt grateful for their audience and the affection was reciprocated.

With that blend of soft and hard rock alternating throughout, some of the livelier songs were teasing in the early stages of the show. There were roars for the intro of Velcro, the hypnotic, potent single from 2011’s Bloodless Coup.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.

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