Turnstiles leave on their own terms – but legacy lives on

Groove Tube with Cian O’Connell

No Galway band in recent memory can lay claim to live shows as magnetic and disruptive as those forged at the apex of Turnstiles’ last three years – and soon it will be no more. From the band’s earliest gigs, covering IDLES in a moonlit living room in Furbo and blasting a half-hour set in the lobby of Four Star Pizza on Forster Street, through to the crowds drawn at headline shows in the Workman’s, the Róisín Dubh and on a UK tour, the feeling of community has been a constant.

The group’s ethos and sensibilities have informed their own bubble as much as they have the local acts sprouting around them – and now that they have decided to call it a day, they will be survived by that legacy.

For much of their time together, Turnstiles’ progress onstage and in their songwriting was rapid. The five-piece – Callum Mitchell, Jake Tiernan, Cillian Ryan, Colm Sweeney and Luke Mulliez – managed five singles and a four-track EP, releasing at a rate determined to keep up with a packed touring schedule.

In Galway, they grew synonymous with Áras na nGael, the home of Free House – an event still run by and flourishing under Jake and Luke. Appropriately, they will play their final gig there, alongside The Love Buzz and Static Vision, in an all-day event on June 11.

“It definitely started as a completely selfish thing where we just wanted to play a gig and no one would give us one,” Jake says of Free House.

“We were emailing venues and I don’t know why we expected a response – a band with no demoes, no anything, like ‘Hey, put us on’. We started putting on the gigs and meeting other bands, and the community kind of built up around it.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.

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